It is an erroneous interpretation of the convention

In its contribution to the Council, the operator begins by demonstrating how the future Canal France, a group integrated vertically from the edition of their distribution channels, will be able to establish a monopoly on a large number of markets.

On sports rights first, the new set will be only able to spend very large amounts of money to acquire rights premium, including the France Championship of football. Indeed, it will be the only to recoup them on an installed base broad enough nearly 10 million customers, while the other platforms of distribution can not compete. All operators ADSL account that clients pay 300,000, including 200,000 for France Telecom, and cable has waived, for a long time, be bouquets. Sweeping the argument that telecom operators are "Giants" to the "dwarf" audiovisual, France Telecom believes that "none of the other actors cannot be in a position of competition in a credible manner the new entity market football rights, because of the weakness of their subscriber base, contrary to what is happening in Germany or England."

In the acquisition of film rights, France Telecom analysis 'output deal' contracts with the 6 American majors, allowing the platform to monopolize the rights of first window on Canal and GST Star premium channels, and of almost monopolize the rights of second window on channels, Ciné Cinéma (6 channels) cinema and GST film (7 channels). For French films, "France Telecom estimated that 95 of the works produced annually will be captive of the new entity". Conclusion: whether "France Telecom wants to create a premium today, the new entity would render impossible the access to the necessary content for such creation". Exit, therefore, the opportunity to compete with Canal France head-on.

On the other hand, the historical operator concerned openly the fact that the new entity might use its position in the acquisition of rights premium and a "leverage effect" to also block the access to other emerging markets: video, video on demand (VOD), in which it is positioned by purchasing the rights of the French football championship and in launching its VOD service.

Worried about the "output deals".

In VOD, it is concerned that the "output deals" with the American majors can deprive him of first exclusive and catalogue films. Furthermore, it notes that the inter-trade agreement of December 2005 with the French producers "is potentially a barrier to entry on the market of acquiring VOD content, to the extent where it allows sponsors of French works to remove the VOD offer at any time".

The other part of his arguments concerning the distribution, because he intends to establish its own pay-TV bouquet. France Telecom notes that "the market for the acquisition of marketing rights for the chain is not a global market where the strings are interchangeably substitutable." "Any operator of distribution of pay-TV platform needs to be competitive, to establish a competitive and attractive bouquet". Or "premium channels are compelling products that any platform is to develop non-discriminatory conditions." He does not hesitate to set fire to the powder by challenging the argument of Canal who believes that its agreement with the CSA imposes an autodistribution of the channel Canal . "It is an erroneous interpretation of the convention." Nothing in this text prohibits the distribution of Canal programmes by one company other than Canal Distribution. "What France Telecom application to the competition Council is to impose on the publishers of strings to a wholesale market third-party distributors to become retailers. Clearly, he wants to transpose the concept of unbundling is imposed on the telecom market in the audiovisual market. To do this, he said in Italy and the United Kingdom "strings premium publishers were forced to commercialize these strings on a wholesale basis.