Bulgaria’s Watchdog Rejects Complaint Against bTV, Nova

Bulgaria’s Commission for Protection of Competition (CPC) said that it rejected a complaint over alleged abuse of dominant position filed by Plovdiv-based cable operators OpitLan and N3 against bTV Media Group and Nova Broadcasting Group.

The two private multi-platform media companies have neither an individual nor a joint dominant position on the wholesale market for distribution rights of TV programmes on the territory of Bulgaria, the competition authority said in its decision published last week.

The CPC’s market and legal analysis of the operations of BTV Media Group and Nova Broadcasting Group was related to an alleged offering of different price conditions to platform operators for acquiring licensing rights for the same programme or package of programmes and the indirect imposition of unreasonably low prices on the retail market for end customers of the pay-TV service, the antitrust body said.

The CPC’s decision can be challenged by interested parties before the Sofia Region Administrative Court by November 17.

BTV Media Group and Nova Broadcasting Group are parts of Dutch-based telecommunications and media companies PPF Group and United Group, respectively.

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