Update 3 - Melita gives up exclusivity on World Cup quarter final match

Melita said today that it was prepared, in the interests of consumers, to give up its first pick on World Cup quarter final matches so that all four quarter matches could be broadcast on PBS.

The announcement was made at a meeting of the Parliamentary Social Affairs Committee after furious arguments over TV rights.

Melita had, in terms of an agreement with PBS, the right to reserve one match for broadcast exclusively on Melita Sports - in the same way as it yesterday exclusively broadcast the England-Germany clash.

The announcement means all World Cup matches from the quarter finals stages will now be screened by PBS.

When the meeting started this morning representatives of Melita and GO confirmed that they had not reached any agreement on content sharing.

The two companies were asked to explore such an agreement by the committee last week.

At the opening of this morning's meeting, Melita legal counsel, Teresienne Bezzina, said Melita had made a commercial proposal to GO but GO sought to deviate the discussion by raising arguments about infrastructure sharing, something which Melita found to be irrelevant.

Infrastructural limitations were something which every company could overcome, as Melita had done through investment which enabled it to carry up to 150 channels. Other companies of a similar size as GO in European companies were able to carry some 200 channels and many services, Dr Bezzina said.

"This issue of a competitive disadvantage which GO is complaining about is a matter of choice based on investment. Infrastructure can be replicated but content cannot," Dr Bezzina said.

Edmond Brincat for GO plc said that Melita's attitude was that it wanted football content from GO now, it wanted sharing of movie channel content to be discussed ‘later', it wanted disconnection issues to be referred to a committee, and it wanted the infrastructure issues never to be discussed.

It was ‘rich' of Melita not to want to discuss infrastructural issues, he said, especially when Melita had not invested on its own duct network but was actually using the network that belonged to GO. In the case of a cable company, investment on the cable infrastructure was the biggest area of spending.

Mr Brincat said the number of channels on GO was not limited by the infrastructure but by the spectrum given to the company by the authorities.

The GO representative said that the financial proposal that Melita had spoken about was a mere two-liner and it was clear that what Melita wanted was content from GO at a discounted price.

"It was Melita's choice not to invest in content," Mr Brincat insisted.

He also argued that the extent of Melita's interest in consumers was shown by the fact that it yesterday chose not to have PBS broadcast the Germany-England match. That match was even denied to Melita's own ordinary clients and was only shown on Melita Sports.

Replying, Dr Bezzina said the agreement on the broadcasting of that match was reached weeks ago, before it was known that the clash would involve England and Germany.

Mr Brincat said it had been reported in The Times that the decision was only taken last week.

Dr Bezzina stood by her point.

She also pointed out that Melita also had rights over a match in the quarter finals stage.

Natalino Fenech, Acting CEO of PBS, said these arrangements had been made with Melita to reduce the costs for PBS. Otherwise the state broadcaster would not have been able to afford carrying any of the matches.

David Agius MP said Melita should not have been able to pick one of the most important matches.

Mr Fenech said no one could forecast where England would end up.

Mr Agius said it could easily have been worked out.

Pierre Cassar, CEO of the Broadcasting Authority said the Maltese people were generally well served in this world cup. With regard to yesterday's match, he said the outcome of the groups had been unpredictable, and one expected England to top its group, something which had not happened.

Mr Fenech said the deal reached by PBS was specific for Malta, and Melita made its choice after the teams were known.

Mr Brincat said that PBS had just contradicted Melita, which said that the agreement (regarding yesterday's match) was reached weeks ago.

Mr Fenech said Melita had a right to choose Game A or B when the teams became known.

Dr Bezzina (Melita) said the agreement was reached in March. It stipulated that Melita had the first pick of games, but it had not known at the time where teams would end up.

Chris Cardona said the issue was when the pick was made.

Dr Bezzina said the choice was made once the teams became known.

After being asked, Dr Bezzina said that as a gesture of good will, Melita would give up its exclusive right for one quarter final match match.

Mr Fenech said the new agreement was subject to approval by the EBU.

The Melita announcement was greeted by all those present for the meeting.