127

As regards that demonstration in the present case, the Commission focused its analysis on the audit of TV2’s accounts by the Rigsrevisionen. In that regard, it noted, in recitals 128 to 135 of the contested decision, that, according to the Danish authorities, the Rigsrevisionen’s appraisal of TV2 involved not only a financial and management audit of its accounts, but also a check of its efficiency. However, the Commission did not consider that the fact that TV2’s accounts were submitted for approval by the Danish Minister for Culture was sufficient proof that TV2’s costs were those of a typical, well-run undertaking. The Commission went on to say that, during the formal investigation procedure, the Danish authorities relied in particular on the 2000 report from the Rigsrevisionen. That report to some extent compared the productivity of TV2 with that of DR and foreign public-service broadcasters, namely the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Sveriges Television (SVT) and Norsk Riksringkasting (NRK). That report found that DR and TV2 had improved their productivity between 1990 and 1999 and that DR’s and TV2’s productivity improvements were better than or equal to the productivity increases of the other three public-service broadcasters. The Commission considered that that report was not sufficient proof that the fourth Altmark condition was fulfilled, in particular for the following reasons: — first, the Commission disputed the relevance, from the point of view of the fourth Altmark condition, of ex post controls where no analysis of those costs was made before compensation was set; — second, it noted that the 2000 Rigsrevisionen report was produced after the media agreements setting the amount of compensation (see paragraph 94 above). It did not therefore show that the compensation was determined on the basis of the costs that a typical undertaking would have incurred in fulfilling its public-service mission; — third, the report made a comparison with other public-service broadcasters, none of which could be considered a ‘typical’ undertaking. The Commission noted in that regard that it was impossible to draw any conclusions, for the purposes of the fourth Altmark condition, from the comparison between DR’s and TV2’s productivity, since DR was not allowed to generate income through advertising and its compensation was set on the same basis as that for TV2. It was not therefore a typical public-service broadcaster. As regards the comparison with foreign public-service broadcasters, the Commission noted that the report only compared the development of TV2’s productivity with one of the other public-service broadcasters and was silent on the level of efficiency as such, and hence on the costs themselves. In the Commission’s view, that finding was not conclusive for the purposes of the fourth Altmark condition, since a lower productivity increase on the part of a public-service broadcaster could be due to many factors; — fourth, the Commission noted that the Rigsrevisionen had itself pointed out in its report that it had not examined the foreign public-service broadcasters’ accounts in detail and that there could therefore be differences between those broadcasters’ activities and between the calculation methods used for individual accounting items. The Rigsrevisionen had also stated that the purpose of the report was to compare productivity ‘development’ rather than the level of productivity as such and that it had not examined the causes of that development in any greater detail.