Ensuring the good functioning of media and press markets is not only important under competition law, but also vital to meet other core strategic priorities of the EU, notably the EU Democracy Shield initiative which is intended to tackle concerns relating to security policy, information resilience, and disinformation.

Consequently, the serious market impact of public service broadcasters on private and commercial media is a matter of critical public interest. This is not about being for or against public media. Rather, this is about striking a reasonable balance and basic requirements for competitive neutrality and fairness.

Private media want a clear, proportionate, and sustainable balance between the public service remit and the interests of commercial media, ensuring that the general public interest is protected by the entire media sector, not just the part which is owned and operated by the state.

Too many PSBs across Europe have taken a path of uncontrolled expansion with profound market consequences for publishers. Public service mandates were conceived to fill gaps in radio and television broadcasting, but were never intended to create state-funded, public service newspapers.

If news and press markets shift overwhelmingly towards the state-funded sector, then media pluralism is not genuinely strengthened but merely concentrated. This contradicts the rationale for financing public broadcasters and undermines the basis for commercial media to compete fairly in a free market economy.

The full submission can be found here.

Contact: Iacob Gammeltoft