The European Commission is launching a probe into the licensing deals between Europe’s largest pay-TV firms and audiovisual studios based in the US.
It will look into restrictions in these agreements that grant “absolute territorial exclusivity” to…
The European Commission is launching a probe into the licensing deals between Europe’s largest pay-TV firms and audiovisual studios based in the US.
It will look into restrictions in these agreements that grant “absolute territorial exclusivity” to the broadcasters, preventing access by their subscribers outside the licensed member state.
Major US studios Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros., Sony, NBCUniversal and Paramount were singled out for the review, along with satellite DTH firms BSkyB in the UK, Sky Italia in Italy, Canal+ in France, Sky Deutschland in Germany and DTS (Canal Plus) in Spain.
Joaquín Almunia, vice president of competition policy for the European Commission, said: “I want to be clear on one point: we are not calling into question the possibility to grant licences on a territorial basis, or trying to oblige studios to sell rights on a pan-European basis.
“Rather, our investigation will focus on restrictions that prevent the selling of the content in response to unsolicited requests from viewers located in other member states – the so-called ‘passive sales’ – or to existing subscribers who move or travel abroad.”
He cited a subscriber to a pay-TV service in Germany not being able to view the same content during a trip to Italy as an example.
According to Almunia, these kinds of provisions might constitute an infringement of EU antitrust rules that prohibit anticompetitive agreements.
The probe follows a Court of Justice ruling that found the absolute territorial exclusivity given to satellite broadcasters of football matches may be anticompetitive.
