dis-missed

Sponka.tv

Sponka.tv is a Slovenian regional television station. It broadcasts in the regions of Koper, Sežana and Nova Gorica.

Sponka.tv was born as Cable TV channel, and has only been broadcasting on terrestrial TV since 2003.

Frequency Controversy

The station is controversial, because it transmits, from the local repeater of Tinjan, near the town of Koper, on the Slovenian Littoral, on the channel UHF 52. However, in the same area, on the same channel, transmits, from the repeater of Conconello in Trieste (but also receivable on the same frequency from the repeaters of Teolo in Padova, and Udine), the Italian private channel Italia Uno, which is the most watched channel by the youths of both Italy, and the Slovenian Littoral.

Due to Sponka.tv's signal interferring with that of Italia Uno, at some locations to the point of Sponka.tv completely replacing Italia Uno, several requests have been forwarded to the direction of Sponka.tv, requesting them to cease, and desist, their transmissions from Tinjan, or at least, to move them onto some other frequency. Sponka.tv's direction, however, dis-missed the requests completely, and posted an extremely nationalistic post regarding this issue on some Slovenian web-sites, among which, Obala.net, which is the most popular among the youth of the Slovenian Littoral.

The controversy is important, because Sponka.tv doesn't interfere with Italia Uno only on the Slovenian territory, but also on the Italian territory, hence, why the owners of Italia Uno, Silvio Berlusconi's Mediaset, themselves, also requested Sponka.tv to do something about the issue already, yet, Sponka.tv still refuses to comply with the given requests, giving the 1961 agreement between Italy, and Yugoslavia, in which, the channel UHF 52 was assigned to Yugoslavia, as their reason not to do so. However, Yugoslavia, and later, Slovenian, never used the channel until the advent of Sponka.tv in 2003, hence, why Mediaset used the channel for Italia Uno. The channel has also been assigned to Italy for after 2015, for use in DTT broadcasting, hence, why Italy doesn't want to give it away so easily.

Concerns have also been raised, also due to other similar Slovenian interferences with the Italian TV stations, such as that of TV Koper - Capodistria on channel UHF 54 from Tinjan, which interferes with Canale 5 from Chiampore di Muggia, Kanal A on channel UHF 62 from Beli Križ, which interferes with Canale 5 from Aviano near Pordenone, that the Slovenian State might be deliberately giving the Slovenian TV stations the same frequencies, as the most watched Italian TV stations, in order, to force the watchers to get Cable TV, if they want to continue watching their favorite Italian TV stations. Also, Sponka.tv having been born as a Cable TV channel, according to popular opinion, shouldn't be entitled to transmitting on terrestrial TV, due to a Slovenian law, which prohibits that.