French pay-television broadcaster Canal Plus’s future sports rights-buying could be restricted if the country’s competition watchdog, the Autorité de la Concurrence, acts upon recommendations from the country’s national media regulator, Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel.
The competition authority, which is assessing Canal Plus’s resubmission for the merger with pay-television operator TPS, asked the regulator for its opinion on the market power of Canal Plus. According to French magazine Le Point, one of its recommendations is for Canal Plus to be blocked from acquiring live pay-television and free-to-air rights for the same sporting event.
Such a regulation would prevent the company from monopolising coverage of a sporting event by showing coverage on Direct 8 – a general entertainment channel on free-to-air television that was acquired by Canal Plus from French investment company Bolloré Group in December – as well as on its pay-television channels. Other restrictions on general programming were recommended, according to the report.
The broadcaster said that the regulator’s recommendations, if true, would restrict competition in the free-to-air television market, which is dominated by commercial broadcasters TF1 and M6. Canal Plus added that the measures would also deter the company from investing in French and European programming.
Last year, the competition authority took the extraordinary step of retrospectively withdrawing its support for Canal Plus’s merger with TPS, which was originally approved in 2006, on the grounds that Canal Plus had failed to fulfil its obligations.