France Telecom-owned Orange had won a court appeal in May that gave it the right to offer its Orange Sport and Orange Cinema Series channels exclusively to subscribers to its internet and telephone services. Orange has a four-year deal from 2008-09 to 2011-12 for the rights for Saturday night Ligue 1 games, which are shown exclusively on its Orange Sport channel.
The authority said that “the dual exclusivity is a restriction of consumer choice, who can no longer have access to all the attractive content or is obligated to pay much more for universal access to content” and that “Orange’s strategy runs the risk of de-stabilising the broadband market at the expense of competing operators.”
A spokesman for Orange said: “This recommendation will lead us to adapt the model of our content services.”
The authority’s findings are advisory and not legally binding but are likely to form the basis for future legislation covering pay-television services. The authority still has to rule on a complaint made by pay-broadcaster Canal Plus and mobile-operator SFR claiming that Orange is offering its Ligue 1 football matches at below cost.
The Ligue de Football Professionnel, whose future television revenues are almost certainly linked to Orange’s ambition in the market, commented: “The only thing which is clear with the ruling is that things are not clear. The competition authority has called for the government to fix the rules so the ball is in the government’s court. We will ask the government to do what it can to maintain competition in the pay-television market in the interest of sport and cinema.”