An agreement is emerging between Antitrust Authority director general Dror Strum and the three cable companies: Tevel, Golden Channels, and Matav. After the agreement is finalized, Strum is likely to approve a merger of the cable companies in both infrastructures and broadcasting.
The matter was raised at a meeting yesterday between Strum; Golden Lines CEO Ram Belinkov, the designated CEO of the merged cable company; the company's lawyer, Adv. Zvi Agmon, and its economic consultant, Yitzhak Suari.
Sources inform "Globes" that the parties reached an agreement, subject to the approval of each of the three cable companies, on restricting the cable companies' purchase of content to the Family Channel and the Movie Channel.
Under the conditional agreement, the Sports Channel will be completely independent. The cable companies are also expected to make a commitment to allow independent channels to freely access their network, without discriminating between them, or in favor of their own channels. The cable companies also promised not to make any more exclusive content purchases.
Another issue discussed was the cable companies' entry into the telephony field, in competition with Bezeq. The cable companies' representatives agreed to commit themselves to Strum regarding the technology and budgets they will formulate, and a timetable for penetration of the market. According to the timetable, the companies will begin competing against Bezeq 18 months after the merger is implemented.
The parties also agreed that the merger would not be implemented before the cable companies' competitor, the YES satellite broadcasting company, was on a firm financial footing.
Ram Belinkov and Dror Strum declined to comment on the report.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on November 21, 2001