Romania’s Competition Council has fined media broadcaster PRO TV SRL 20.7 million lei, approximately 4.1 million euros, for failing to fulfill commitments made during a previous antitrust investigation. The regulatory body imposed the fine after discovering that the broadcaster breached binding terms established to maintain fair competition in the Romanian television retransmission market.
The original commitments were adopted in 2021 for a mandatory three-year period to address serious concerns regarding a potential abuse of PRO TV’s dominant market position. Under those terms, the broadcaster agreed to implement a new commercial offer for retransmission rights. Specifically, the agreement required PRO TV to reduce the gap between the discounts offered to Last-Tier Operators and those granted to other retransmission operators compared to its previous pricing scheme. In this context, retransmission operators purchase rights for cable, DTH, and IPTV services, with Last-Tier Operators representing the largest distributors based on their high subscriber volume.
However, a formal monitoring procedure conducted by the watchdog revealed that PRO TV did not adhere to the agreed framework. Upon analyzing contracts signed with television distributors, the Competition Council found that the pricing disparity had actually widened rather than decreased. Depending on the specific year and reporting tier, the discount gap increased by values ranging between 2.25 percent and 22.60 percent relative to the previous commercial offer.
Because PRO TV failed to lower these commercial disparities as promised, the competition authority stepped in with severe financial penalties. The official decision detailing the findings and sanction will be made publicly available on the Competition Council’s website once confidential commercial information is redacted.