Czech Television received a questionnaire from the European Commission describing the market and competitive risks that the control of Nova TV by the PPF financial group, which also owns the O2 operator, may bring. Petr Dvořák, CEO, informed about it at today’s meeting of the Czech Television Council.
“We are currently processing the answer to this questionnaire. The intention is to communicate to the European Commission our concerns about further market developments. In particular, the market for broadcasting rights to sporting events. This activity follows on from the objections to the merger of TV Nova and O2, which we sent to the European Commission last week through a law firm, “said the director of Czech Television.
“We appeal to the European Commission to allow the merger of these entities only on the condition that CT will be provided with equal and transparent access specifically to important rights that are traded on the Czech market,” Petr Dvořák explained this step. “We want to prevent a situation like two years ago, when Czech Television was not approached at all when selling the rights to broadcast the highest Czech football competition, and was subsequently forced to negotiate and conclude an O2 sub-license agreement,” he added.
According to Dvořák, in the case of the merger of Nova and O2 without the above conditions, O2’s aggressive behavior in the sale of sports rights can be expected, given the recent growing importance of sports broadcasting.
The positive opinion of the European Commission is the last major official step needed before the PPF Group can fully take over TV Nova and other television stations operated by CME. We addressed this in more detail in a recent article.
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