The Czech Office for the Protection of Competition (UOHS) has given its final approval to the takeover of UPC DTH by M7 Group.
It says that M7 Group is already active in the Czech Republic through the DTH service Skylink, while M7 Group operates a DTH service under the freeSAT brand. Consequently, the activity of the two companies overlaps horizontally in the provision of retail pay-TV services.
However, given that their market share is on a downward trend there will only be a small increase in their combined share and they will continue to be exposed to strong competition from such providers as UPC, O2, Digi CZ and T-Mobile.
As a result, there will be no significant distortion in market competition.
As previously reported by Broadband TV News, M7 Group reached an agreement to but Liberty Global’s satellite TV operations in four CEE markets – the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania – last December.