Hollywood In EU Spotlight as TV Probe Said to Escalate

Hollywood studios including 20th Century Fox as well as some of the European Union’s biggest pay-TV companies face an EU antitrust complaint over movie-licensing deals that regulators claim thwart cross-border competition. Apparently, EU regulators may send a so-called statement of objections to five studios and five broadcasters as soon as July. The move would escalate a 2014 probe into how contracts with EU broadcasters, including United Kingdom-based Sky Plc and its German and Italian units, curb the sale of movies and TV programs outside their home markets. Other film companies involved are Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Brothers unit, Sony Pictures, Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal Media and Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures.

The EU has made competition in the digital market place one of its top priorities. Aside from clashing with Google over alleged abuse of market power, antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager opened an industrywide investigation into barriers that block access to Internet-based services and content -- including films and TV shows -- across the 28-nation EU. Apparently, France’s Vivendi SA and Spain’s DTS Distribuidora de Television Digital SA may also get the EU complaint. The EU case into so-called absolute territorial protection clauses was triggered by a ruling from the bloc’s top court in 2011 that the English Premier League’s geographic restrictions limiting where TV channels can show its soccer matches breached competition law.