Competition issues in the UK TV advertising trading mechanism

In this document we set out our decision not to refer the market for TV advertising to the CC for further investigation. We have concluded that even if there are grounds to suspect that features of the TV advertising market might prevent, restrict or distort competition we do not believe that it is proportionate to refer the TV advertising market to the CC under Section 131 of the Enterprise Act 2002 (EA02).

In making our decision and assessing the potential competition concerns identified, we have applied the the Office of Fair Trading’s (OFT) guidance on market investigation references (the ‘OFT’s Guidance’)5 for making a market reference, which include assessing whether a referral is a proportionate response to the problems identified.