A group representing Europe's commercial broadcasters has asked the European Commission to extend the stricter rules of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) to smart TVs and virtual assistants, according to an exclusive report by Reuters.
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The Association of Commercial Television and Video-on-Demand Services in Europe (ACT) is calling for smart TV platforms and virtual assistants to be classified as gateways under the DMA. Smart TVs and virtual assistants from Google, Amazon, Apple and Samsung should be subject to stricter EU technology rules because of their growing market power, the world's largest broadcasters told the EU's antitrust chief, Teresa Ribera, on Monday.
ACT represents major broadcasters, including Canal+, RTL, Mediaset, ITV, Paramount+, NBCUniversal, Walt Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Sky and TF1 Groupe, some of which have or maintain close relationships with Apple, including content partnerships for Apple TV.
The letter is also reportedly signed by groups such as the Association of European Broadcasters (AER), the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the European Association of Television and Radio Broadcasters (egta), Confindustria Radio Televisioni (CRTV), Televisión Comercial en Abierto (UTECA) and the Verband Österreichischer Privatsender (VOP).
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According to Reuters, ACT stated that a limited number of entities are gaining increasing ability to shape outcomes for millions of users and businesses by controlling access to audiences and content distribution, adding that it is critical for the Commission to label major TV operating systems as gateways and ensure sufficient oversight to guarantee fairness and competitiveness.
The lobbying group is said to claim that Apple and its counterparts may have incentives to keep end users within their own ecosystem and to restrict, either conventionally or technically, the connection or redirection, repeating arguments that are often made about the App Store, which is already subject to the DMA.
Apple and the EU are in a long-standing confrontation regarding the App Store rules under the Digital Markets Act, with the latest round of proposed changes under review for almost a year.
On the other hand, Apple recently won a rare victory in Europe, as Apple Maps services and the company's advertising services were deemed not to be gateways, due to low usage and limited market impact in Europe.
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Importantly, ACT's request is not limited to smart TVs. In its letter to the EU, ACT is said to have also expressed concerns about virtual assistants, the most well-known of which are Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri, while OpenAI entered the field last year with an experimental feature called Tasks for the AI chatbot ChatGPT.
