Simple solution to football on TV

News last summer that Go plc had acquired the exclusive media rights to broadcast the English Premier League and Italian Serie A sent shockwaves through thousands of fans who religiously tune in to watch their favourite team playing on TV. Fans quickly realised they had to incur hefty additional costs to continue enjoying the broadcasts of the most popular football leagues as Melita plc, the other pay-TV operator in Malta, retained the rights to the UEFA Champions League.

The Parliamentary Social Affairs Committee discussed this issue at length with the aim of finding a solution that would be consumer friendly while protecting the investments of the respective operators.

The crux of the issue is neither to intervene in the market for the sake of intervention nor to favour one operator over another.

The main issue here is to address the affordable accessibility of TV content that is in popular demand. My proposal aims at addressing the issue of accessibility of content while safeguarding the commercial interests of operators by following tried and tested practices that have already been implemented in larger EU markets.

Although content is readily available in the market, households need to pay more than double what they paid four years ago for the same content. This is brought about by passing the hike in the cost of acquisition on to the consumer. To avoid this from repeating itself and to avoid the eventuality of the distribution of popular content being driven out of the market, it is therefore important that we find a solution that is durable and coherent within the policy of fair competition.

My proposal is to introduce a wholesale must-offer obligation on pay-TV operators. This would bring the costs of acquiring content down to acceptable market levels, provide different operators and their subscribers with access to a wider spectrum of content and do all this at reasonable retail prices. In simple terms, under the proposal any operator that distributes exclusively over its own sports channels any of the content from the English Premier League, Italian Serie A and UEFA Champions League will have an obligation to offer, on a wholesale basis, those channels to the other operator. This would be done within a framework that would protect the investments of those operators that actively seek to distribute such content.

This is not something that we are inventing in Malta for the first time. Remedies of this nature have been enacted in other European countries such as Italy, UK, Germany and Spain to mention a few examples. In certain other countries operators have provided access to their sports channels to other operators without the need to enact a specific provision in the law. Cyprus is a case in point.

My idea is to implement a similar model as that in the UK, whereby pay-TV operators will have an additional obligation in their broadcasting licence. Therefore, with immediate effect I would call on the Broadcasting Authority to insert such an obligation in the broadcast licence of the two operators, namely Melita and Go. This would also be a condition on subsequent operators seeking to enter the pay-TV market in Malta. The conditions for providing a wholesale product must be also clearly spelt out and must include, among other things, the need for a formal request for supply, a minimum qualifying criteria and a timeframe to implement the technical requirements. Pricing should also be reasonable.

There should be no reason why the framework for providing the sports channels on a wholesale basis to other operators should take more than four to six months from formal request and should include a procedure for dispute resolution.

Simply put, the consumer can maintain one subscription with the operator of choice but have access to view the sports channels of the other operators as well. This will come at an extra cost for the sports package of the other operator. The wholesale offer for operators would be economically beneficial even in the short term because it increases the distribution possibilities and curbs piracy.

I urge the Broadcasting Authority to intervene before operators are faced with another round of bidding for these popular sports properties. It is for this reason that I seek the implementation of a forward looking condition with immediate effect in order for future contracts to be regulated through the wholesale mandatory obligations. Moreover, the operators should work towards having a commercial solution in place for the next football season.

Mr Agius is a Nationalist member of Parliament.