The Conseil de la Concurrence, the French competition regulator, has ordered broadcast services provider TDF to allow alternative distributors to offer FM broadcasting services from the Eiffel Tower.
The decision comes following an anticompetitive complaint from towerCast, which argued that delays by TDF in providing information to the company prevented it from being able to issue a competitive bid when the city of Paris renewed the concession for occupancy of the Eiffel Tower transmission site.
The council also ordered TDF to limit any contracts signed with private stations for use of the site to one year, and any previously signed contracts must be resigned as one-year deals.
The Eiffel Tower site covers some 11 million people in the Île-de-France region, and is used for terrestrial digital and analog TV services, as well as 30 radio stations.
