French Pay-TV: Back to growth?

20 July 2010

This presentation on the French pay-TV market covers the principal recent developments on that market and the positioning of suppliers, including Vivendi's Canal+, France Télécom's Orange, Numericable and alnets Iliad and SFR. French TV homes are rapidly switching over to 'free' multichannel TV services, but the upside for premium subscriptions is modest. To maintain positioning as the dominant premium content provider, Canal+ is both improving the user experience of its core DTH subscribers (e.g. the new Le Cube), and widening its partnerships with network operators to offer on-demand to Canal+ subscribers. Orange is one significant exception, due to the rivalry initiated by the launch of Orange TV pay services in July 2008. This rivalry was a factor in lower subscription levels for Canal+ in Q3 2008, down to 10.41 million, in addition to the ongoing lure of free, plus the economic downturn and credit crunch. The target of 11.5 million subscriptions by 2011 looks out of reach (Orange Threat to Canal+ Targets [2008-24])

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