UPC may not remove The Box, NieuwsNet9 and NieuwsTV from its cable network

The cable company, UPC, may not remove the television programmes, The Box, NieuwsNet 9 and NieuwsTV from its range of programmes. OPTA has decided this in a dispute involving UPC and the providers of these programmes. UPC is required to continue to transmit these programmes through its cable network in Amsterdam until the city’s Algemene Programma Raad (APR) has presented new recommendations concerning the contents of its standard package.

Earlier this year UPC decided to halt the transmission of the above-mentioned programmes in response to a new recommendation made by the APR to cease offering them. The providers of The Box, NieuwsNet 9 and NieuwsTV brought a case before OPTA. UPC continued to transmit these programmes while awaiting OPTA’s decision.

OPTA has now come to the conclusion that the APR had wrongly limited the number of channels to 26, whereas the standard package for Amsterdam contains 32. As long as the APR has not been afforded the opportunity to present its views on the content of all 32 channels, OPTA will not allow UPC to hold the transmission of The Box, NieuwsNet 9 and NieuwsTV. Should the APR present a new, well-founded recommendation to UPC to the effect that the relevant programmes should not be part of the package of 32 channels, UPC will be fully entitled to follow the APR’s advice and to refrain from transmitting the programmes any longer.