Monday January 9, 2023, after two years of negotiation, the French digital giants Orange and Canal+ signed a memorandum of understanding for the acquisition of OCS and Orange studio by the canal group. The latter already owned 33.4% of the shares of the platform and therefore had a right of pre-emption: if OCS were to be put up for sale, Canal+ had priority.
The Canal group therefore takes possession of the 4 OCS television channels as well as the Orange subsidiary for the co-production of films and series. At the end of the transaction, he will be “the sole shareholder of the two companies”. However, according to the daily The echoes, Canal+ will not actually pay for this acquisition. On the contrary, Orange should pay him a certain sum (undisclosed) as security, having accumulated nearly €500,000,000 in debt with his audiovisual activities. Launched in 2008, the French streaming platform has had great difficulty competing with its American competitors, Netflix and Disney+ for example. By way of comparison, Netflix has more than 10,000,000 subscribers in France, compared to 3,000,000 for OCS. Getting their hands on this non-negotiable number of subscribers and on a catalog of 1,800 audiovisual works, Canal+ would have undertaken “to take over all of the hundred or so employees of OCS”. Orange notably co-produced The Artistreleased in 2011 and Oscar winner 5 times, or The Father, released in 2020 and twice Oscar winner.
Finally, this acquisition comes after the loss by OCS of its broadcasting rights for the content of the American channel HBO. This was its flagship asset: HBO produces Game of Thrones, Westworld, Euphoria or The Sopranos. These series are therefore no longer legally available in France. This may presage the arrival of a new successful American platform: HBOmax. It has more than 75 million subscribers worldwide and is already available in several European Union countries (eg the Netherlands, Croatia, Portugal). HBOmax in France is therefore surely only a matter of time!
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