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Netflix and Canal on the same boat

Netflix has signed a distribution agreement with Canal + at the beginning of the week and is preparing to face competition from the major competing platforms of Apple or Disney.

They are two rivals, not to mention two enemies of yesterday who agreed to sign the peace of the brave. As in any western, around the pipe of peace, there is one belligerent less powerful than the other. When you consider that Canal +, compared to Netflix, has a program budget ten times lower and at most 20 million subscribers in the world, against nearly 160 million. For a long time, Canal + has claimed to resist by presenting itself as the champion of the cultural exception. The speech was the following: Netflix, it's not expensive - the first price is 8 euros - but you can never find the great French series of original creation as The Bureau des légendes , Gears or, the most recent, The savages .

Netflix started producing in France, and even had coproduction agreements with TF1 to broadcast the charity bazaar just after the channel. It has become more and more shadow to Canal +, knowing that Netflix already has six million subscribers in France. For the French group, a distribution agreement was imposed. After all Canal +, distributes well the chains of Orange (OCS) or Disney. So why not Netflix for a price increase of 15 euros?

For its part, Netflix has understood that it tends to stagnate in its recruitment of subscribers, in the United States it has even 126,000 subscribers less this year. The stock market did not appreciate this stunting, the consumer was sometimes disappointed by series or the time that the platform - very addictive - took him, and Netflix understood that he had to find distributors like Sky in the United Kingdom. United or Comcast in the United States to reach pay TV consumers and not just those who connect directly to the internet.

Above all, Netflix sees profiling new platforms rival. After Amazon Prime, Apple TV + and Disney + are expected for November across the Atlantic. Follow HBO Max, Warner Media or NBC Universal. We see emerging platforms everywhere that rely, for the most part, on program catalogs: Fox for Disney, Universal for NBC, Warner for HBO ... This explains why Netflix for example lost the rights of its series the most watched, The Office in favor of NBC Universal and Friends in favor of HBO Max, platform that has just acquired for a billion dollars the rights of the series The Bing Bang Theory .

Netflix needs to partner with people with production and broadcast capabilities to expand its customer base. For Canal +, it's a chance on condition that you do not lose your publisher soul, not to see yourself as a mere aggregator.