Private media protest at public sector Web ventures

Date: 17/12/1998

By Peter Chapman

PRIVATE publishers are calling on the European Commission to investigate EU public television companies' efforts to launch services such as magazines and live radio feeds over the Internet.

The plea to Competition Commission Karel van Miert comes as he struggles to impose tougher controls on the financing of the Union's public broadcasters to ensure they do not abuse their state subsidies.

Angela Mills, director of the European Publishers Council (EPC), said the industry's warnings had been well-received by institution competition officials at a meeting with private sector broadcasters and publishers earlier this month.

"A number of EPC members made passionate pleas regarding the commercial activities on the Internet of public broadcasters," she said.

They included the publisher of the UK's Electronic Telegraph, which voiced fears that TV and radio companies might be cross-subsidising commercial online publishing ventures with licence-fee cash or other state hand-outs.

"The officials said they were concerned, although so far no one has looked at it. They seemed to acknowledge that they needed to get as much information as possible in order to make better decisions," said Mills.

She added that the issue was likely to spark a number of complaints to the Commission as the true extent of the problem began to emerge.

A spokesman for Van Miert said the Commission had not yet received any complaints about broadcasters' online activities and was not planning to launch a unilateral investigation into the issue.

But he added that officials were meeting executives from the public channels this week as part of the Commission's latest round of consultations in the television financing debate.

Van Miert sparked a furious row over the issue in October, when it emerged that his officials had drawn up a 'discussion paper' outlining tough general guidelines for investigating state channels which benefited from state cash as well as advertising revenues.

The Commissioner pulled back after pressure from governments and public broadcasters, promising instead that his department would examine TV state aids on a case-by-case basis.

Private publishers are calling on the European Commission to investigate EU public television companies' efforts to launch services such as magazines and live radio feeds over the Internet.