The Slovak Antimonopoly Office (SAO) has not found any violation of the Act on Protection of Competition in connection with the broadcasting of programmes of Czech television stations in Slovakia. Only a court can decide on a possible conflict of licensing rights, the authority, which took up the case at the initiative of Slovakia's biggest commercial TV stations, said today. Czech TV channels are popular among Slovaks.
According to available information, the Slovak TV channels Markiza and Joj wanted to get Slovak operators to refrain from broadcasting films and series from the Czech channels' programmes if the Slovak TV channels have purchased exclusive broadcasting rights for the territory of Slovakia. The Antitrust Authority also stated that the Slovak broadcasters did not ask for restrictions on the broadcasting of all Czech TV channels or even all of their broadcasts, but only part of them.
"The PMO did not find any violation of the law and concluded that there is no reason to continue the investigation or to initiate administrative proceedings in the matter at present,"
the authority said.
However, according to the PMO, the investigation showed that a conflict between the licence rights granted to Slovak broadcasters and the licence rights to some programmes broadcast on Czech TV stations cannot be ruled out. The Office wrote that only a court can decide on this matter.
Source: mediaguru.cz
