European Commission Clears News Corp.’s Premiere Investment

BRUSSELS, June 26: The
European Commission has given its approval to News Corporation’s acquisition of
a 25.01-percent stake in German pay-TV platform Premiere, subject to certain
conditions in order to allay competition concerns.

News Corp. is now
Premiere’s largest individual shareholder, after buying an initial
14.58-percent stake in January, upping it to 19.9 percent in February, 22.7
percent in April and then to 25.01 percent in May.

The Commission’s
competition concerns are related to Premiere’s recent announcement that it would
begin using conditional access technology from NDS, majority owned by News
Corp. Premiere’s current deal with Kudelski runs until 2012. The Commission
maintains that “Premiere's switch to the NDS CA system would most likely impede
third-party access to Premiere's satellite platform via its technical services
provider, thereby strengthening Premiere's dominant position in the German
pay-TV market. The Commission's investigation also revealed that the management
of the smartcards gives the provider of CA technology the possibility of
impeding access by other pay-TV operators.”

News Corp. has pledged
that third parties will continue to have access to Premiere’s set-top boxes.

Competition Commissioner
Neelie Kroes stated: "Television is clearly a product that concerns the
European consumer directly. I am satisfied that the commitments received ensure
that the German pay-TV market will remain open and that competitors will
continue to have access to Premiere's satellite platform to the benefit of
customers in Germany."

—By Mansha Daswani