ARCEP launches a consultation on its draft decision on the wholesale market for terrestrial television broadcasting services. The Authority proposes adjusting regulations to a market in a state of decline.

Paris, 12 June 2015

ARCEP has been responsible for regulating the wholesale market for terrestrial television broadcasting services since 2006.

As the third round of regulation will come to a close in 2015, ARCEP began the process of reviewing its analysis of the market in late 2014 by submitting its scorecard of the previous round of regulation to consultation, and delivering its analysis of the outlook for the digital terrestrial television (DTT).

After having taken into account stakeholders' responses to this first public consultation, ARCEP produced a draft decision for the period running from 2015 to 2018 which, today, it is submitting both to public consultation, and to the French Competition Authority and to French broadcasting authority, Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA) for their opinion.

With this draft decision, ARCEP is proposing that its regulation be adapted to a market that will decline over time, due to a structural change in users' viewing habits. As a result, the goals for the next round of regulation are twofold: first, to enable multiplexes to deliver more competitive solutions and, second, to send an economic signal to market players by providing them with incentives not to make inefficient investments.

ARCEP invites all stakeholders in the television broadcasting market, and particularly broadcasters and multiplex operators, to provide feedback on this draft decision by 6 pm on 15 July 2015, at the latest.

Today, ARCEP is also publishing a summary of the responses to the consultation that ran from 5 December 2014 to 30 January 2015, on its analysis of the scorecard and outlook for regulation of the wholesale market for terrestrial television broadcasting services.

Lastly, the Authority is publishing its observatory of DTT broadcasting in France, as of 31 December 2014.