Italy’s antitrust regulator has started formal proceedings against Canal+-owned Italian digital TV platform Tele+, claiming that it used its dominant position to buy up an excessive share of TV rights to Italian league football.

According to the regulator, Tele+ has six-year contracts in place with ‘a significant number’ of Italy’s first-league clubs, effectively limiting the growth potential of its main competitor Stream. Under Italian media laws introduced last year, no single pay-TV operator can hold more than 60 per cent of total rights to Italian league football.

Tele+ has also been reproached for a 1996 cable agreement with Stream which included anti-competition clauses which forced Stream to restrict its carriage to cable even for those football games for which it directly bought the rights, leaving Tele+ free to operate on the satellite TV market.

The authority has given Tele+ 180 days in which to settle on a solution that will allay the concerns of the Antitrust authority and comply with the requirements of the Italian and European competition law. Commenting on the decision, Tele+ representatives said they were pleased since the Italian Antitrust authority has opted against inflicting economic sanctions. According to Tele+, the ruling ‘takes into account the massive financial investments made by the Italian broadcaster to promote and develop pay-TV in Italy, and allows Tele+ and its majority shareholder Canal+ Group to continue implementing its investment plans.

Recent research, based on data from 1999, has shown that Tele+ signed up 82 per cent of the pay-TV subscribers and earned 92 per cent of the revenues of the pay-TV market.