Flextech Takes ITC ‘Unbundling’ Move To High Court

Cable and telecommunications company Flextech has today applied to the High Court for a Judicial Review of the Independent Television Commission’s (ITC) recent decision to remove minimum carriage requirements for cable and satellite channels (see ITC Confirms End Of Minimum Carriage Requirements).

A number of programme producers, including Flextech, Live TV and Universal Studios, have complained that the ITC’s actions may effectively cut their channels out of the cable/satellite market as distributors are no longed obligated to carry them.

In Flextech’s High Court application it claims that the Commission has acted outside its legal authority. It believes that the ITC’s regulation should be concerned only with content and not with the economics of programme supply. The ITC should not “regulate the terms of supply of such services to retailers or their onward sale to consumers,” says Flextech.

The cable company, which produces channels such as Trouble and Bravo, also believes that the ITC has acted illegally “by interfering with existing contracts.”

Flextech’s chairman, Adam Singer, said today: “We have spent a great deal of time analysing the ITC’s ruling in detail in the light of both existing and future carriage agreements for our channels. The Direction does not provide the level of clarity and guidance needed for us to ensure that our contracts are acceptable under the new regulation, and despite several attempts we have been unable to obtain clarification from the ITC. We have therefore concluded that we have no option but to seek Judicial Review in order to challenge the ruling, which we believe to be outside of the ITC’s legal authority.”

Due to problems with its switchboard, the ITC could not be contacted for comment on these developments this afternoon.

Flextech: 0171 299 5128 Independent Television Commission: 0171 255 3000