Emilio Azcarraga Jean, the president and CEO of Mexican broadcasting giant Grupo Televisa, is not happy with a new round of antitrust measures imposed last week by Mexican regulators. In a March 9 statement, Televisa blasted the new measures as unfair, arguing that they are being imposed "at a time when the broadcasting sector is experiencing fierce competition" from new technologies and a new national TV broadcasting network.
As part of its periodic review of antitrust rules, Mexico's Federal Telecommunications Institute, or IFT, the country's top telecommunications independent regulator, on Thursday announced additional measures for Televisa's broadcast television operations, affecting infrastructure-sharing requirements and advertising conditions.
Televisa is being asked to provide broadcast services to rivals in cases where no passive infrastructure exists. It will also have to give the IFT specific information regarding advertising terms and rates.
Televisa, one of the world's largest producers of Spanish language TV content, said that as a whole the measures "have certainly increased the regulatory burdens" the company is subjected to, complaining that regulators seem to ignore "fierce competition" and how new actors are gaining market share when issuing the new measures against it.
Televisa vowed to "analyze carefully" legal or business actions it could take regarding the new round of antitrust measures.
Under Mexico's sweeping 2014 telecom reform law, which gave birth to the IFT, Televisa and América Móvil (controlled by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú) have been subjected to regular reviews to assess whether the imposition of asymmetric regulations have been successful in reducing dominant market share in the companies' respective markets.
América Móvil, the biggest wireless telecom and pay TV provider in Latin America, continues to hold a wireless market share of almost 70% in Mexico, according to Reuters. Last week, the IFT gave América Móvil 65 working days to present a proposal for the legal separation of a part of Telmex's fixed-line infrastructure from its cellular business.
Meanwhile, Televisa continues to be Mexico's largest pay television provider, accounting for some 60% of all subscribers, according to IFT figures.
The new measures come at a bad time for Azcarraga Jean. In announcing its fourth quarter and 2016 year results last month, Televisa reported a 59% fall in fourth-quarter net profit compared to the year-earlier period and said it expects to cut capital expenditures by 33% to around $1 billion in 2017, as it prepares for tougher times with a weaker Mexican peso.
They also come at time when Televisa has expanded its presence in the growing Spanish-language TV market in the U.S. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission recently cleared the way for Televisa to own a much bigger stake in U.S. Spanish-language broadcast network Univision, allowing the Mexican TV conglomerate to own up to 40% of Univision's voting stock and up to 49% of its common shares.
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