(ANSA) - Rome, April 15 - Cairo Communications, which owns Italy's La7 channel, was the sole company to apply to participate at a government auction of digital broadcast television frequencies, the development industry said Tuesday.
Media and advertising entrepreneur and Torino soccer club boss Urbano Cairo, who heads the firm, will have 30 days to submit a bid for one or more of the three batches of frequencies on offer, with a mandate to reach 51% of the Italian population within five years.
Excluded from the two-month bidding process, which ended Tuesday at noon, where holders of three or more major frequencies, such as State broadcaster Rai and three-time premier Silvio Berlusconi's Mediaset.
Cairo is a former protege' of Berlusconi, and his takeover last year of La7, considered Italy's last independent network with a national reach, raised concerns over pluralism in TV, the medium where an estimated 90% of Italians get their news. Cairo has stated he has no intention of following in the footsteps of Berlusconi, who in the past has allegedly used his political and economic clout to purge his three private Mediaset channels and Rai of journalists critical of his government and policies.