The French competition authority Conseil de la concurrence has rejected a complaint about the Rewind TV service from Orange. Last October, Aforst, the country’s association of alternative telecom operators, filed a protest against the exclusive arrangement between Orange and the French public broadcaster France Télévisions.
Under the agreement, the incumbent operator is able to offer an exclusive catch-up TV service from all public channels. Neuf Cegetel, SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Telecom Italia said they also want access to these programmes, which are now only available as an on-demand service for mobile, PC and IPTV, exclusive to Orange subscribers.
The Conseil rejected the complaint because the agreement with France Télévisions is only for a limited period of time (two years) and also covers a limited number of programmes. It also ruled that other operators have access to other on-demand programming from other sources, enabling them to offer an alternative.