TV service providers Melita and Go are being investigated to establish whether any consumer rights were violated when they dropped two stations from their channel line-ups, which may have been transmitted illegally.
Parliamentary Secretary Chris Said has asked the Consumer and Competition Department to look into the matter, adding that a preliminary outcome should be published within “a few days”.
His announcement comes in the wake of accusations by Nationalist MP David Agius that Melita and Go were “taking customers for a ride” and that customers deserved compensation.
This month, both providers announced they would have to remove Living TV and Comedy Central from their line-ups because broadcasting rights could not be cleared for Malta.
But a spokesman for Living TV – which is owned by the same company that distributes Comedy Central in the UK – said Melita and Go never had the rights to transmit.
“Living is a channel licensed in the UK, exclusively for audiences in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. We do not have the rights to broadcast our programming to other territories and would not be able to offer the channel to paying Maltese audiences even if we wanted to,” the Living TV spokesman said.
Melita and Go never reacted to these comments but both said they provided alternative channels to make up for the removal of the two stations.
Irate customers questioned why they were made to pay for channels which came free to providers and some demanded compensation arguing they agreed to prepaid packages when Living TV and Comedy Central were still available.
The Malta Communications Authority says the law “does not foresee the granting of compensation in such cases”. It said operators who decided to change any terms or conditions of service were obliged to notify subscribers 30 days in advance, giving customers the right to withdraw from the contract during this period without incurring any penalties.
However, this would not apply in cases of force majeure. “In this case, the authority considers that this provision did not apply... as the change was not instigated by the service providers themselves.”
This reasoning was not appreciated by Mr Agius who argued that if his wife forced him to end a contract with a television provider he could not get away without consequences.
Go was the first provider to announce discontinuing both stations and Melita had said negotiations were ongoing. Melita later said it would remove the stations in the second week of January but Living TV disappeared abruptly last Monday. Comedy Central is still being aired on Melita but is expected to be dropped in January.
Asked for an update on the long awaited reformed Consumer Department, a spokesman for Dr Said indicated the Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority would be fully functional “in the first part of 2011” after a second reading of the draft Bill announced in November.
(The Times)
See also:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20101229/local/situation-in-telecommunications-sector-worrying-consumers-council