Negotiations between Canal + and the film industry came to a halt on Wednesday (October 24th), as the television channel rejected the terms of the agreement on the time required to broadcast the films.
New rebound in the series of the chronology of the media: Canal + broke off its negotiations with the film industry, which conditioned a new agreement supposed to accelerate the diffusion of the movies on television and in streaming.
The former Ministry of Culture team assured last month that an agreement was imminent. But the boss of Canal + Maxime Saada sent Friday a letter to the professional organizations of the cinema (BLIC, BLOC and ARP), where he announces the end of the current discussions deploring "a unilateral logic which ends up exercising the detriment of the own interests Canal + " .
This mail, revealed Tuesday by the specialized publication Satellifax, was confirmed Wednesday by the chain to AFP. The discussions to reform the "chronology of the media" system that framed in France the successive exploitation of films in cinemas, on DVD, on television and on streaming platforms, had lasted for months.
The current rules, set in 2009, need to be modernized to take into account the emergence of Netflix and GAFA in the audiovisual landscape.
Disagreements between Canal +, Orange and the cinema sector
If the various actors in the sector had approved a reduction in the time between the release of a film theatrical and its dissemination on other media, the discussions stuck on the renewal of funding agreements linking the Canal + and Orange groups, two weights pay television, the cinema sector.
In his letter, Maxime Saada explains that "the business model of the group has been totally revised" , with the launch of new subscription offers, and considers that it has made for the film industry "very many concessions" , "systematically unilateral" , with "an almost total absence of benefits" for Canal +.
He regrets that the free channels have obtained a change in the chronology of the media "without any compensation for the benefit of the cinema" .
The agreement currently in force expires at the end of 2019 and Canal + wishes to open a "new phase of negotiations" .
Vivendi's subsidiary is the largest private financier of French cinema (just over 170 million euros last year, according to the CNC), but its contribution, linked to its turnover, has been declining in recent years.
The new Minister of Culture Franck Riester, invited Tuesday on France Inter, said that "we can not, in France, not change the regulatory framework of the media chronology . " If the actors "should not be able to assume their responsibilities, the law will be able to decide this subject" , he warned.