Following a complaint lodged by Sky, a proceeding was deemed necessary to determine whether this company abused its dominant position in Italy's market for television viewer surveys.  

On November 5^th, 2009, the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato decided to launch an investigation to determine whether the Auditel company abused its dominant position in Italy's market for television viewer surveys.

The task of the proceeding, which was launched in response to a complaint lodged by Sky Italia, is to verify whether the company engaged in dilatory and obstructionist conduct with respect to Sky's proposals for improving the representativeness of survey data. Data of this nature are a critical element of strategic and commercial decision making by businesses in the television advertising and pay TV markets.

According to the complaint, Sky had approached Auditel's Technical Committee to propose the circulation of daily television channel viewing data broken down by platform type (analog, digital, satellite, IPTV) and the daily circulation of data for the category of "other digital terrestrial platforms."  

Sky alleges that Auditel's Technical Committee provided no objective justifications for blocking Sky's proposals, which were never brought to the attention of the Board of Directors (where Sky holds no position due to its lack of share capital).

According to Sky, Auditel's practice of hindering and delaying new initiatives for improving the accuracy and reliability of audience data favors Rai and Mediaset by obstructing the development of new television platforms, such as satellite platforms in particular.

According to the Authority, obstructing the introduction of innovative methods for data dissemination decreases the survey system's capacity to accommodate new forms of television supply, to the clear disadvantage of new operators and platforms. This type of conduct is likely to alter the dynamics of healthy competition in the televised advertising and pay TV markets. In the final analysis, a more thorough distribution of viewer data is likely to provide consumers with indirect advantages in terms of the quality and variety of television programming.