EU: Van Miert warns BDB

On 3 June Karel Van Miert, commissioner for competition, said that the Commission and the UK authorities are concerned about the bid by BDB for terrestrial digital broadcasting licenses in the UK. BDB is a consortium comprising BskyB, Carlton Communications and the Granada Group. BDB recently bid for digital broadcasting licenses from the UK authorities to provide over 40 pay-per-view channels to subscribers. The UK Independent Television Commission (ITC) referred the bid to the EU Commission to review the potential anti-competitive aspects of the bid. Van Miert stated that his concern relates to the potential risk of a dominant position on the UK market, where the BDB participants are active on other pay-per-view sectors such as conventional and satellite TV.