AGCM

PRESS RELEASE

TELE-VOTING: ANTITRUST AUTHORITY ORDERS MEDIASET AND RAI TO EXCLUDE BUSINESS USES. CATRICALÀ: POISED TO INITIATE PROCEEDINGS SHOULD THESE COMPANIES FAIL TO RESPOND

The current mechanism admits a significant number of calls from specialized operators in the sector. Controls conducted after consumers filed numerous reports regarding the Festival di Sanremo and Grande Fratello. The two companies given 20 days to propose specific measures to adopt

Business uses should be excluded from the tele-voting mechanism. The Antitrust Authority presented this request in the form of two formal letters to Mediaset and Rai after controls were conducted in response to numerous consumer complaints concerning the Festival di Sanremo and Grande Fratello.  The two companies have been given 20 days to propose specific measures to adopt.
“We expect the two companies to accommodate our requests," stated President Catricalà, "because otherwise we will have to open two sanctioning procedures.  The tele-voting mechanism should be transparent:  the votes of spectators who are inspired by the prospect of making a difference in the selection of candidates should not be compromised, not even potentially, by the votes coming in from call centers."
According to the Antitrust Authority's reconstructions, the current mechanism allows for operators who specialize in the sector to input extremely high numbers of calls in order to express pre-determined preferences for specific choices. These preferences tend to reflect prior agreements involving the purchase of entire packages of tele-votes, and do not necessarily reflect the preferences of the television audience itself. The essence of the entire voting mechanism could be compromised as a result.
Because it would constitute a form of deception of the consumers, Rai and Mediaset must cut off this possibility upstream by:
1) defining tele-voting rules that exclude business uses from participating in the voting;
2) incorporating notices in the publicity for tele-voting programs to announce the exclusion of business uses from the voting;
3) setting up systems with the capacity to recognize and exclude any votes that come in from business uses.

Rome, 16 September 2010