Spain: Vodafone asks CNMC for changes on Canal+ purchase proposed by Movistar

The CEO of Vodafone Spain, Antonio Coimbra, has asked the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) to take advantage of the revision that must be made in 2020 to the conditions for the purchase of DTS (Canal +) by Telefónica in order to set a formula that will allow other operators to replicate Movistar’s offers.

Coimbra has specifically asked the CNMC to set a variable cost per subscriber for football broadcast rights, as is currently the case with film channels, and not a guaranteed fixed price. He also asked that the replicability formula takes into account the actual costs of content and not fictitious ones. He also assured that data shows the current system does not work, since Telefónica has kept a dominant position in both for-pay television and telecommunications services.

Vodafone also said that the loss of customers for having waived this season’s Champions League and Partidazo has been in line with what the company expected, but this does not indicate that they are happy with their decision to leave football, because the ideal situation would be that for any client of any operator to watch it, something that is currently prevented by the regulation.