France’s competition authority is to investigate whether the conditions it set in 2019 for the launch of Salto have been breached by broadcaster M6, according to information gathered by Capital. As one of the three main shareholders in the Salto SVoD service, M6 agreed to respect a number of obligations aimed at guarding against anti-competitive behaviour. The probe is reportedly linked to M6’s long-running dispute with OTT company Molotov. The latter has accused the broadcaster of unfair discrimination after failing to renew a distribution contract for M6’s free-to-air channels.
These unsuccessful negotiations were blamed by Molotov on a request placing all of M6’s TV content exclusively under a paid-for subscription, including channels available on a free-to-air basis over DTT.
The OTT company has argued that this is in breach of the anti-competitive commitments taken by M6 as part of the approval of the Salto venture. The accusation of discrimination is based on the fact that the broadcaster offers the channels in question without any subscription on its own 6play streaming platform.
The competition authority and M6 have declined to comment on the alleged investigation. Earlier this week, a French court ordered Molotov to pay EUR 7 million in damages to M6 for airing the broadcaster’s free-to-air channels without a distribution contract in place.
In related news, FuboTV said that it has closed its acquisition of Molotov earlier than anticipated. When the deal was announced on 09 November, the closing of the transaction was expected during Q1 2022.
