News Media Europe’s contribution to the European Commission public consultation on the Notice on the definition of relevant market for the purposes of Community competition law can be found here.

Main takeaways include:

• NME welcomes the initiative to review the European Commission’s Notice on Market Definition in light of rapid digitisation and evolving market structures;
• NME stresses that media markets are developing in different ways and at different speeds within national geographic markets, with the role and importance of user and advertising revenues differing across such markets;
• NME stresses that the distinction between analogue and digital media markets is no longer appropriate in several respects, and that the market definition process should seek to support the digital transformation of news media;
• NME notes that ongoing media convergence has important implications for the definition of relevant product markets as news media are increasingly competing for users with companies such as Netflix and Spotify;
• NME calls on the European Commission to assess whether market definitions applied to online advertising accurately reflect market reality in light of the diversity of actors and services active in advertising technology;
• NME questions the assumption that digital markets are by definition strongly contestable when assessing potential competition, calls on the European Commission to recognise entrenched dominant positions;
• NME calls on the European Commission to define an input market for data to reflect the increasingly important role of data as an important common denominator between different markets.