Europe files antitrust charges against Sky and film studios

Just received this in a "breaking news" email from CNN:

The full EC announcement is here: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-5432_en.htm

I think the EU Commission are missing the point that, in general, most broadcasters are defined by national borders, and so that's one of the reasons why rights are granted the same way.

Sky UK isn't preventing any other broadcaster from bidding for rights to show films in their country: so surely there is no anti-competitive stance.

By the look of it, the Commission seems to want EU-wide broadcasters, with EU-wide rights . . . unless I'm misinterpreting their announcement following my quick scan of it.

It does seem that way, the impact it could have on the way sports rights are sold is enormous.

Having trouble opening the press release but I'd thought I'd add my 2¢ (if that's a phrased used in the UK) to the following.

Isn't that kind of they Discovery Comm (can't think of the UK channel) got the World Cup? Also I was digging around the EBU website and it seems like they broker deals with the groups and then they resell the rights again. I'm wondering why the EBU even has to act as the middleman between sports holders and the broadcasters?

Edit : I just read the release and am wondering if this would be an issue if Sky was broadcasting exclusively to either the UK or Ireland? But also why does the EU expect a service that is intended to be broadcast to the UK and Ireland to be available to the rest of the EU? Being here in the US I am not familiar with how the EU works but I'm slowly trying to learn, so please pardon my ignorance as I'm learning.

The anti-competition stance is that UK viewers don't have the choice of going elsewhere to obtain the film rights. This complaint will lead to many spin-off issues coming to court. Sky's HBO deal for Sky Atlantic, Sky's refusal to on sell content to BT, BT's AMC deal, IPTV geoblocks etc.

Nobody is suggesting that this content should be given away, but anyone offering the going rate in one country should be able to view in another. Modernising the Licence fee would seem to open a goldmine for the BBC if it could charge across the EU for iPlayer access for example. Net Neutrality being a keen element in this trans-frontier marketplace.

Sports rights holders should be somewhat uneasy tonight. The current pricing model could be about to be exploded.

This isn't the first time the EU have looked at this. We are supposed to be a single market for goods and services within the EU - but for some reason pay-TV isn't included in this. My skim reading suggests that the EU are suggesting that movie studios are preventing Sky UK from making their services available across the EU, and that this is restrictive in terms of a single market, and prevents Sky UK from making their services available (should they wish to) across the entire EU? (This isn't the same as forcing Sky UK to make their services available across the entire EU)

This is also, possibly, tied to Geo-blocking of streaming services, where tourists can't watch the services they pay for in one EU country when on holiday in another EU country.

In locking down rights on a country-by-country basis, and thus preventing legitimate out-of-region subscription, it is argued that this prevents compeition between operators in different countries who could, in theory, offer their services out-of-region.

In other words I should be able to chose to subscribe to Viasat Sweden or Canal Digital Denmark in the UK rather than Sky - and movie rights deals shouldn't contractually prevent this and compartmentalise the European market for pay-TV on a country-by-country basis - removing the single market ?

(The reality of the situation is that by restricting passive out-of-region sales, a black-market economy has popped up selling subscriptions via third parties at massively inflated prices. Or other even less legal methods are used)

If this is taken to the extreme, it would go way beyond Sky and reshape the entire broadcasting market in Europe. That press release (and earlier signals on this subject) suggests the EU wants all European channels to be available everywhere in Europe to anyone willing to pay.

If territorial exclusivity is ruled illegal and channels cannot restrict their reception to certain areas, then all rights would have to be bought for EU-wide coverage. Those rights would either be non-exclusive or exclusive in the entire union (provided the EC doesn't declare all exclusive rights illegal). In any case, smaller national broadcasters wouldn't stand a chance and the market would have to consolidate into Europe-wide networks.

(That said, it is possible that we are misinterpreting this, announcements from the EU tend to be cryptic and contradictory)

Could we see a compromise deal between Sky and the EU where they could offer their general entertainment packs EU wide, but keep movies and sports under the existing UK and Ireland only arrangement?

Incidentally, it should be that difficult for their NOW TV IPTV service to be made available with pan European streams which they could geolock those shows they don't own the rights for outside of the British Isles. (The existing streams show a banner when they don't own the IPTV rights to a show)

On a personal level, it does frustrate me that I have to jump hoops by using paid for smart DNS services to watch commercially funded programming from France (I don't subscribe to Canal+) of which is going to be of little interest to people in the UK unless they're French ex-pats or Francophiles without English subs.

I think it is to do with contracts with film studios actively preventing out-of-region sales. This kind of contract goes against the EU single market ethos I guess.

Personally I've always been a bit annoyed that I can't subscribe to non-UK pay-TV services, and am forced to chose just between Sky UK and Virgin Media. It's even worse if you're an ex-pat who just wants to watch channels from their home country. Given that the EU allows freedom of work and travel, I guess there is a definite reason to allow passive out-of-region sales to allow people to continue watching.

Of course how this then ties into licence-fee and tax funded public service broadcasting across the EU is even more complex.

Yes, the heart of this is the wording of some contracts. It is feasible that they can find a solution that strikes down those offending clauses but still preserves territorial exclusivity. But territorial exclusivity would essentially be meaningless if broadcasters aren't somehow prevented from selling their channels abroad.

So would this mean it could be feasible for RTÉ to remove its geoblock at 28.2E should this all go through as indicated?