16/01/2024 - France's Competition Authority has conditionally ratified an operation which will shake up the landscape of pay TV and the pre-financing of French film

"First-window broadcasters are the first, primordial point of call for the funding of film projects and, to date, Canal+ Group and OCS have been the only two first-pay-window broadcasting options whom French film producers can turn to when looking to pre-finance their film projects". After identifying "a threat to the diversity of French film", the Competition Authority have given a conditional green light to Canal+ Group’s acquisition of OCS and Orange Studio, an operation which has been in the pipeline for a long time and is due to come into effect at the end of January.

For this reason, Canal+ Group has committed to "guarantee the strict and effective independence of the Ciné+/OCS team from the Canal+ team when making decisions relating to the pre-purchasing of first-pay-window French films by French producers and when negotiating with these producers."

Moreover, "in order to further guarantee the diversity of French film, the Canal+ Group has committed to producing a pre-purchasing proposal for the Ciné+/OCS team, pertaining to a minimum of 25 French film projects over a period of five years, including a minimum of four French film projects per year (one of which costing less than €4m), for films which the Canal+ acquisition team refuses to broadcast in a first pay window."

"For French catalogue films which Orange Studio co-produced before this operation and for which it doesn’t hold a distribution mandate", Canal+ has also committed not to oppose the transfer of broadcasting rights to a TV catch-up service on a free-to-air broadcaster.

For the record, in 2022 Canal+ invested €117.3m in pre-purchasing 104 French Initiative Films (in addition to €5.38m for 12 minority French co-productions). As for the other pay TV channels, OCS invested €10.93m (in 17 feature films, including 16 FIFs) and Ciné+ €14.3m (in 119 films, including 105 FIFs).

(Translated from French)