Spain’s National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC) has ordered Telefónica to compensate its competitors Vodafone, Telecable and Total Channel for mismatches in the amounts they paid for the wholesale distribution of the football channels Canal+ Liga and Canal+ Partizado in the 2015/16 season.
In a statement, the regulator says it issued the resolution as part of the monitoring carried out to verify if Telefónica was complying with its commitments imposed as a result of its acquisition of the pay-TV platform DTS in 2015.
Significantly, the CNMC says that as part of its analysis Telefónica can claim back money from Orange and Open Cable, which were charged less than the minimum guaranteed cost for Canal+ Liga and Canal+ Partizado in the 2015/16 season.
Telefónica is required to have a wholesale offer that allows competitors access to its pay-TV channels with premium content and commercialise them through their own pay-TV platforms. In calculating the price of the offer, Telefónica takes several elements, one of which is a so-called minimum cost, into account.
The cost is calculated on the basis of recurring subscribers to each operator’s pay-TV service (75%), the share of fixed broadband accesses marketed and able to support TV services (20%) and potential TV accesses (5%).
