The Italian competition authority has found no evidence that Sky Italia’s acquisition of UEFA Champions League 2012-2015) and FIFA World Cup (2012-2015) TV rights represented an abuse of a dominant position.
AGCM said the exclusive TV rights to the European club competition had been allocated under a competitive process. It noted that Sky-I had sublicensed two out of three years (2012-2013 and 2013-2014) and that the principal matches in the World Cup were guaranteed free-to-air distribution under an EU Directive.
An analysis of the monthly Sky-I subscriber levels has shown that the availability of the World Cup on the satellite platform had not generated a significant increase in subscriptions.
