The French competition authority (l’Autorité de la concurrence) has written to Canal+ to express its reservations over the decision to drop premium movie channel TPS Star.
The channel was folded into the main boy of Canal+ at the time of the merger between TPS and Canal’s DTH satellite operation in 2006. Canal had made a series of commitments to the authority including maintaining the quality of the channel. However, with ten of these commitments unmet in the eyes of the authority, approval for the merger was withdrawn in September 2011.
According to Les Echos, the letter expresses the authority’s disapproval at the actions, even though it is likely to once more give the merger its blessing. Rather it would have preferred Canal to wait for the authority’s pronouncements before taking any action of its own.
In the next few days media regulator CSA will give its decision on the return of TPS Star’s DTT frequency with the possibility that Canal will be obliged to continue offering a service on the DTT platform.
