French competition regulator mulls Canal Plus concessions

France’s competition authority has pushed back the date for its ruling on Canal Plus’s merger with TPS to July 24 to give it time to digest a number of concessions that the pay TV operator has proposed, according to French press.

According to AFP, citing sources close to the enquiry, the proposals put forward by Canal Plus are likely to be deemed insufficient to ameliorate the regulator’s concerns. The competition authority last year took the extraordinary measure of rescinding its 2006 authorisation of Canal Plus’s merger with TPS on the grounds that it had failed to meet commitments entered into at the time.

According to newspaper La Tribune, the competition authority has already decided not to impose a splitting up of Canal Plus’s content and distribution arms. The paper has reported that the authority’s president, Bruno Lasserre, told Canal Plus executives last month that he would no impose a structural separation of different parts of the group.