Poland’s National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT) has reported a possible crime by Cyfrowy Polsat over its transmission of two football matches on a pay-per-view basis in September 2012.
In a statement, the regulator says this follows a thorough analysis it made to clarify all the circumstances that prevented free and widespread access to the matches, which saw the Polish national team play Montenegro and Moldova in FIFA 2014 World Cup qualifiers.
Although Cyfrowy Polsat decided to show the matches on a pay-per-view basis as the public broadcaster TVP had failed to reach an agreement with the rights holder to broadcast them FTA, the KRRiT is of the view that the DTH platform may have been in breach of the country’s Broadcasting Act.
Cyfrowy Polsat has reacted with surprise to KRRiT’s action.
It says that it has not been kept informed of the regulator’s actions and that it has never before objected to pay-per-view broadcasts, which have been undertaken in Poland for a number of years.
