Israel News met the conditions of the designated news channel tender and was declared the winner of the tender, after The Council for Cable and Satellite Broadcasting made its final decision on the matter today.
The council originally decided that Israel News, headed by Moshe Shlonsky and Ilana Dayan, had lost the tender. Rival Hadashot 24 was selected as the tender winner by the council. Israel News appealed the decision to the Tel Aviv District Court and then the Supreme Court, eventually convincing the Supreme Court that Hadashot 24 had failed to meet the tender's threshold conditions.
Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled that Hadashot 24 was ineligible to operate the channel, due to its ownership structure, which allotted too many shares to non-Israeli shareholders.
As a result of the decision, Hadashot 24 was liquidated last week. One of its founders, Yaakov Eylon, will probably join Israeli News, which is now getting ready to provide news for the Third Broadcasting Authority (Channel 3), scheduled to go on air at the end of January.
Today's announcement by the Council for Cable and Satellite Broadcasting states, "The Council was asked to examine all the threshold conditions of the tender, including whether Israel News met the Israeli ownership conditions, stipulating that control of the consortium must be in the hands of Israeli citizens and residents, and whether the consortium met the restrictions on holdings by owners of an Israeli newspaper. The Council found that Israel News meets all the conditions."
The designated news channel is the first of five designated channels that will be broadcast on cable and satellite television, and will be financed by advertising and the sale of broadcasts. The license for the channel is valid for ten years. The tender's terms stipulate that 60% of programming must consist of news content and Israel-related material, while 15% will consist of non-Israeli events.
Israel-News is owned by Formula Systems (Nasdaq: FORTY )(23%); Eliyahu Roichman (23% ); G.G. Studios (12%); IGB the Fifth Dimension – Isaac Kaul, David Brodet and Shlomo Ness (12%), Oded Mozes (4.99%); Ronny Savir (5.1%) and founders Zvi Hauser, Shmuel Slavin, Moshe Gal and Bob Marbut, chairman of Hearst-Argyle Television (20%).
Hadashot 24 chairman Udi Angel congratulated Israel News on winning the news channel franchise, and said Hadashot 24 would take no legal action against it.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on 2 January 2002