PRESS RELEASE

TV: ANTITRUST SANCTIONS AUDITEL FOR ABUSE OF DOMINANT POSITION, FINED FOR OVER 1.8 MILLION EUROS

This firm's anticompetitive conduct, which was reported by Sky, seriously compromised the dynamics of competition in the markets for televised advertising, the supply of pay-TV services and the wholesale provision of television channels.

Auditel is being fined 1,806,604 euros for abuse of dominant position. This is the Antitrust ruling from the Authority's 14 December 2011 meeting. According to the Authority, this firm abused its dominant position in the Italian market for television audience measurement by setting up three different abuses that seriously compromised the dynamics of competition in favor of its primary shareholders - RAI and Mediaset - in the markets for televised advertising, the pay-TV service supply and the wholesale provision of television channels.

In specific, Auditel:

a)  unjustifiably obstructed the daily publication of channel-by-channel television viewership data for each broadcasting platform (analog, digital, satellite and TV via internet), from the second half of 2009 through October 2010;

b)  obstructed the daily publication of data for the 'OTHER DIGITAL TERRESTRIAL' category, from the second half of 2008 through January 2010;

c)  erroneously attributed panel-based viewership figures to the sub-population of non-TV owners during the data processing phase.

For this last abuse, Auditel has been granted three months to adopt measures fit to end this violation and communicate them to the Authority.

According to the Authority, which launched the inquiry in response to a complaint by Sky, Auditel's conduct had a dual impact. First of all, the growth possibilities were severely diminished for television broadcasters who were planning to tailor program selection to the viewing patterns of different audiences in order to draw viewers away from general broadcasters. Secondly, the channels of the primary general broadcasters were shielded from the negative effects of sharing the audience figures for channels that were decreasing significantly due to the changes under way. In this way Auditel locked in an advantage for its main shareholders (RAI and Mediaset), publishers of the primary general broadcasters: by obstructing proper assessment of the different broadcasting platforms, they compromised the growth prospects and slowed the development of new televised offers.

The erroneous attribution of viewer data to families without televisions inflated the audience estimates for non-satellite broadcasters only, furthermore, thus favoring the television of Auditel's main shareholders.

Rome, 14 December 2011