On the satellites beaming signals across Europe there is TV of every nationality in free-to-air, free-to-view and pay-TV coded formats. The interesting question is what you have to do to watch the different channels if the channels you want are from a different country to the one you live in. Technically this is no issue – contractually it is impossible.

Behind national walls

Admittedly the English free-to-air channels are on a separate spot beam and therefore technically more difficult to receive as you get further away from the British Isles. The Germans were traditionally free-to-air but have recently gone with a coding system for the high-definition versions of the channels where you have to buy a card that is valid for a year, with no clear picture (no pun intended) of how the service will evolve after the year is up.

The French have two separate approaches where CanalPlus on one hand offers the TNTSAT service where you have to buy a box and card which are valid for 4 years, or you can buy a FRANSAT box and card for the same channels from the national broadcasters which does the same thing but uses a different satellite. But you are only allowed buy these boxes if you live in France.

If we discuss pay TV then each country has one or more pay TV providers who work by the same principles of the service being limited to the national boundaries too.

This means a French citizen is not entitled to buy a French receiver and bring it home to watch French TV if he lives outside France. Similarly for the pay TV: a non resident UK citizen is not entitled to use his UK Sky TV subscription abroad, a German Sky subscription may not be used in ­Italy, and so on – even if the originator of the services is being paid in full.

Clearly this is a totally artificial ruling and, I suspect, is dangerously close to breaching European Law of free trade.

Walled-off TV versus Single Market

The providers say they have only purchased the rights to show the TV to a territorially defined community. This may be so, but as all of the access mechanisms require the use of licensed digital receivers it is not difficult to determine the actual audience numbers and make the deal with the content providers on this basis – might even be cheaper than on a national basis. Pay TV providers know how many subscribers they have.

So where do you stand if you take a box from one country to another? Well, you are not guilty of piracy because you have not defrauded the provider of the service of any payment due. If you take pay TV abroad but continue to pay the subscription you are only in breach of your subscription contract terms. My question then is, if these subscription contracts are working counter to the European free trade rules, how long should we tolerate such walled-off TV services?

According to the EU principles of the Single Market, I should be able to buy a service I want anywhere in Europe. My problem is determining who is blocking the access to the content desired. Is it the Member States? Is it the service providers? Or is it the content owners?

Part of this, I am sure, is a mixture of anti-competition behaviour and market maximisation behaviour.

I say ‘anti-competition’, as maintaining restric­ted national markets is clearly preventing me having the choice to get the TV I want, from where I want, regardless of where I live in the ‘free-trade’ area.

I say ‘market maximization’, as this arbitrary division of the European entertainment consumption market along national boundaries allows the content owners to re-sell their content to each country. If broadcasters pay for content based on subscriber numbers rather than geographical coverage there is no problem. Are there licensing issues? What happened to TV without frontiers?

Note that I did not identify any technical issue preventing the open market here – the only technical issues that are present and unfair to the customers is that the pay-TV providers insist on having closed receivers so you are forced to buy one of their “licensed” receivers. You cannot simply use a decoder CAM and an official card in your TV, even if you have a TV with a built-in satellite receiver.

What needs to be done

It is time broadcasters and regulators reconsider what it means to be European and how they can respect the movement of cultures and people within Europe. If the customer is willing to pay – give him the service regardless of location.

Wake up Europe – let the open market be open for TV, and let the viewers have the TV they want!