Hollywood’s content geo-blocking draws attention of antitrust regulators

The European Commission is planning to send a “statement of objection”—the first step towards a formal antitrust investigation—to top Hollywood studios and European pay-TV companies over their licensing deals, according to a report on Bloomberg. The concern is a familiar one: that film studios are making deals with distribution companies that carve up the EU into smaller local markets, which prevents people in some European countries from viewing films and TV programmes as soon as they are released, and which goes against the idea of the Single Market.