The European Commission has found that German plans to finance part of the fees paid by commercial broadcasters for the transmission of their programmes on the digital terrestrial television network in the German Land of North Rhine-Westphalia are incompatible with EC State aid rules. The Commission considered that the planned funding of EUR 6.8 million over five years was not an appropriate means of addressing specific problems relating to digitalisation and was not necessary to realise the switchover. The Commission also found that the German authorities had not demonstrated that the financing could trigger a change in the behaviour of commercial broadcasters, and concluded that, by solely supporting transmission over the digital terrestrial platform, the planned State support would distort competition between terrestrial, cable and satellite transmission.