Author: Can Yildiz
Introduction
Turkey’s leading pay television service provider, Krea İçerik Hizmetleri ve Prodüksiyon A.Ş. (“Digiturk”), is frequently the subject of complaints made to the Competition Authority (“Authority”). In fact, the Competition Board (“Board”) issues a new decision about Digiturk almost every year. In these decisions, the allegations concerning Digiturk, which holds the exclusive broadcasting rights of Turkish Süper Lig, are mostly related to abuse of dominant position via implementing excessive prices and discriminating between dealers and customers. However, in the past Board decisions where Digiturk has been investigated, there was no determination that it had violated competition rules and the company did not face any sanctions.
However, in a recent decision, the Board determined that Digiturk violated Article 4 of Law No. 4054 on the Protection of Competition (“Law No. 4054”) with its contracts and implementations valid between 2018-2020, and decided to impose an administrative fine on the undertaking. This decision on Competition Law violation is the focus of this article.
Scope of the Investigation and Allegations
Digiturk is a content broadcaster that brings together content and channels from different sources, creates and prices packages according to the needs of different consumer segments, and sells memberships in these different packages. Digiturk delivers its subscription packages to its subscribers via satellite broadcasting, IPTV (internet-based broadcasting) and open internet broadcasting. The packages created are offered to individual users and to commercial establishments (restaurants, cafés, hotels, lodgings, public transportation vehicles, etc.) with different prices and package strategies.
In a period when Netflix, Exxen, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, BluTV, Turkcell TV+, Tivibu Go and similar undertakings offering paid content services over the open internet have gained importance in the media sector, one of Digiturk's most important assets is its exclusive broadcasting rights over Spor Toto Super League, as mentioned above.
This content is in considerably high demand in Turkey, and, because the exclusive rights to it were given as a result of a tender, there is no alternative way of accessing this content other than through Digiturk.
