[article] Premier League TV football choice 'upheld' by EU advice

mike65

Broadcasters cannot stop customers using cheaper foreign satellite TV equipment to watch Premier League football, an EU legal adviser has said.

A non-binding opinion from advocate Juliane Kokott of the European Court of Justice said a block breached EU laws.

Portsmouth pub landlady Karen Murphy, fined for using Greek decoders, had argued the EU single market should let her use any European provider.

The satellite broadcaster SKY has pumped billions into top flight English football since the league was founded in 1992, with the money given to clubs allowing them to buy some of the top names in the world.

The case at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has been about whether a rights holder such as the Premier League can license its content on a country-by-country basis.

Such a set-up has allowed the league to fully maximise the value of its rights.

Although Advocate General Kokott's opinion is not binding, judges usually follow the guidance from the advocate.

If they do, selling sport, movies, or any other content, on an exclusive territory-by-territory basis within the EU may no longer be possible

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12355022

Minstrel27

This is interesting. If it does pass, as it is expected to do, will we see a situation where Sky will buy Europe wide rights for everything.

watty

That might be good.
Because then the EU would have to step in and forbid exclusive rights to one broadcaster.

Kristopherus

The big question is; Will they ????

Pat Gleeson

Kristopherus wrote: »

The big question is; Will they ????

Now there's a $64,000 question, if I ever heard one ...

Mike 1972

Minstrel27 wrote: »

This is interesting. If it does pass, as it is expected to do, will we see a situation where Sky will buy Europe wide rights for everything.

Cant see it happening or at least not overnight.

The market is too fragmented for that. Sky are only significant players in UK, Ireland and Italy and different countries use different satellites in the main (UK/Ireland 28 E Italy/Poland 13 E Germany/Austria 19 E etc)

The concept of "exclusive rights" is probably endangered now. Interesting to see what happens in relation to non-sports programme rights and whether it leads to a breakdown of artificial boundaries in relation to cross border reception of TV services

icdg

Murphy v MPS is a very interesting case. I can't seem to get the full opinion of the Advocate-General in this case (Curia's database is being updated) although there is an ECJ press release here that gives a summary of the opinion:
http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2011-02/cp110003en.pdf

The whole idea of the Single Market was that you would have freedom to purchase a good or service in one member state and take it back to your home market free of import/export controls. While customs and excise duties were the traditional barriers to trade now technical ones have been put up. You can only purchase a mobile phone subscription in your own country, for example, despite the fact that a few major players dominate the market in most EU countries now. And television has become another.

Now while television was essentially a public service, run by state-owned national broadcasters in each state, this may have been desirable. But pay-TV is a commodity, bought and sold like any other. And one might ask why one should not be able to purchase a pay-TV subscription in one state and view it another? Is that not a good or service, barriers to the movement of which are prohibited by the treaties? From the release above the Advocate-General seems to be taking that view.

The flip side is what effect this would have on the broadcasting industry - I'd suggest the following is what might happen if sporting and other media rights had the be purchased on a trans-European basis:

- Public broadcasters channel their rights buying through the EBU. To a certain extent this already happens - and has always happened - but in this new world the EBU would be the only way public broadcasters can secure sporting rights.
- Further emergence of trans-national pay-TV conglomarates. Eventually (to the extent they do not already), News Corporation, Canal Plus, and UPC will dominate pay-TV in Europe. In the longer term I'd suggest News Corporation's pay-TV assets and Canal Plus might persue a merger to create a trans-continental pay-TV provider capable of purchasing rights for all of Europe.
- The hardest hit are the smaller commercial free-to-air broadcasters, the ITVs and TV3s of this world, that aren't part of trans-continental groups and only operate in one country. ITV will not survive as an independent force and neither will TV3.
- RTL will become the only major commercial free-to-air broadcasters in Europe.

Its only a hypothesis and of course the Advocate-General's opinion is influential and not binding.

Mike 1972

icdg wrote: »

In the longer term I'd suggest News Corporation's pay-TV assets and Canal Plus might persue a merger to create a trans-continental pay-TV provider capable of purchasing rights for all of Europe.
- The hardest hit are the smaller commercial free-to-air broadcasters, the ITVs and TV3s of this world, that aren't part of trans-continental groups and only operate in one country. ITV will not survive as an independent force and neither will TV3.
- RTL will become the only major commercial free-to-air broadcasters in Europe.

Surely language barriers will always ensure a certain degree of fragmentation in the European market ?

watty

That's why more FTA non-english stuff is on pan European beams and most FTA english is on Narrow beams.

Turkey moved most of it's channels with English to Eastern Spot. The Western channels that are easily received in UK have no english usually.

Swiss and Austrian German more likely to be encrypted than German German.