Slovakia’s competition regulator, the Protimonopolný úrad (PMÚ), has formally opened separate administrative investigations into the country’s two leading commercial TV broadcasters, TV Markíza and TV JOJ, over allegations they restricted viewers’ ability to skip commercials when viewing archived content.
According to PMÚ, both broadcasters may have required retransmission operators to enforce technical rules blocking or limiting fast-forwarding through ads in library programmes. In the case of Markíza, the investigation was expanded in July 2025 to include this additional allegation; for JOJ, the probe began in August.
The regulator suspects the practices could constitute unfair commercial terms imposed on operators and may amount to abuse of a dominant position. At issue is whether the broadcasters leveraged their market power to force retransmission platforms to disable ad skipping, thereby reducing viewer flexibility.
If found culpable, the broadcasters could face fines of up to 10% of their turnover from the relevant accounting period – potentially a significant penalty for major players in the Slovak TV market.
Markíza has already publicly rejected the allegations, stating it operates in compliance with legal and ethical standards and denies applying unfair business conditions.
In many markets viewers can purchase the ability to fast forward through ads.
The outcome of PMÚ’s decision could affect how much control they maintain over UI/UX features (e.g. fast-forward, ad-skipping) in their archiving and catch-up systems.
