Cabovisão protests Zon’s ‘abuse’ of dominant position


Portuguese cable operator Cabovisão has presented a formal complaint to the country’s Competition Authority against what it sees as an abuse of dominant position in the content sector by Zon Multimedia.
The suit, according to vice president Jules Grenier, brings together, under the same charge, a set of evidence against the actions of Zon on the pay-TV market. In Cabovisão’s opinion, there is excessive horizontal and vertical integration that prevents customers of other pay-TV operators from having competitive conditions, particularly in terms of promotions of premium channels SportTv and TVCine that are controlled by Zon.

Cabovisão’s complaint is against the resale prices of the SportTV and TVCine channels, as well as obligations established for other operators to carry these channels, such as payment of a minimum of subscribers, which is over the number of Cabovisão customers, leading the operator to lose both customers and market share.

Zon has responded by saying that Cabovisão has "market conditions similar to those of other operators," but nevertheless was the only one to lose pay-TV customers in the last two years, when the market increased by 500,000 subscribers.
The pay-TV market leader also points out that its subsidiary Sport TV "has its activity regulated and accompanied by the Competition Authority, where are deposited all contracts for the supply of the channel with no questions raised so far." As for the complaint about Cabovisão’s ‘exclusive content’, Zon points out that TVI 24 is owned by TVi and not by Zon, while "advanced" negotiations are already underway with Cabovisão to provide the TV Cine HD channel.