French transmitter comnpany TDF was sentenced to pay 5.6 million euros for blocking competitors from using the Eiffel tower transmitter site.
The Competition Authority (L’Autorité de la concurrence) has sentenced the companyy for “practices designed to squeeze competitors out of the Eiffel Tower site,” reports Les Echoes.
The location is excellent as it reaches more than eleven million potential viewers and listeners. Currently, all DTT channels as well as 30 radio stations are broadcast from the Eiffel tower.
NRJ-owned transmitter company Towercast also wanted to submit a bid, but TDF was late and incomplete in supplying information and hence kept the monopoly on broadcasting from the tower. TDF is paying the city of Paris EUR3.7m a year, double the amount Towercast had offered.
TDF said it would decide whether or not to appeal the decision once it has analysed the 14-page long decision.
