Sky Italia has expressed its surprise at a decision by the Italian Anti Trust Authority to commence proceedings over its World Cup coverage. The complaint was made back in May by rival Mediaset.
Although Sky held exclusive rights to the competition in South Africa, having previously shown the tournament from Germany four years earlier, Public broadcaster RAI was able to screen all the matches involving the Italian national team as well as the closing stages of the competition.
In a statement Sky Italia questioned as to why the regulator continued to allow Mediaset’s refusal to take advertising for its satellite service, even though an Italian court had already found against it. “We are very surprised by today’s Antitrust action. We still believe that real competition is a benefit, not only for users and the country, but also for the whole industry,” said Sky CEO Tom Mockridge. “We realise that real competition may be unpopular for some operators that are used to dominating Italian television, but I want to be very clear: we won’t quit our mission, which is to constantly improve the quality and the possibility to choose of our offer for Italian consumers. Obviously we will fully collaborate with Antitrust in this proceedings, as we have always done also in the past”.
Sky said that the agreement to show the World Cup complied with the necessary legislation, which in any case was a matter dealt with at European level.
