Streamer chief joins Maxime Saada at event in Paris to highlight programming and partnerships
France’s Canal+ celebrated its recent expansion yesterday with a live event titled The Original+, featuring high-profile guests and an unexpected appearance from Netflix co-chief exec Ted Sarandos.
Maxime Saada, Canal+ chairman and chief exec, surprised the audience by calling Sarandos on stage to discuss the companies’ relationship and the streamer’s operations in France.
A longtime channels aggregator that is also now very active as a distributor of streaming services, Canal+ reached a deal with Netflix six years ago to distribute the platform within some of its channel bundles in France and Poland.
The partnership was extended this summer to French-speaking Africa, with Canal+ now distributing Netflix as part of bundles in 24 sub-Saharan African countries, a move that Sarandos said had helped his company expand its footprint.
“You are the first streaming platform we reached a deal with,” said Saada. “I would say that we are 80% partner and maybe 20% competitor. But now that you are doing more live events and sports, does that mean we are going to become 80% competitor and 20% partner?” he joked.
Sarandos reassured him, answering that Netflix has no intention of buying rights to major sporting events but would instead continue to focus on one-off deals such as boxing matches and Christmas Day football.
He also attempted to allay the film industry’s concerns regarding Netflix’s intentions for Warner Bros, following news of its recent deal for the US studio.
“Our intention is to continue to release Warner movies theatrically, respecting traditional theatrical windows, and we will continue to operate Warner studios independently,” he said.
Saada also asked the Netflix chief how he felt about France’s stringent regulations of its audiovisual sector.
“France is a very complicated place to do business, but love is complicated, and we love France,” answered Sarandos.
Sarandos was in Paris for the world premiere of Emily in Paris S5, which took place the day before, with the show’s creator, Darren Star, awarded the Legion of Honor by president Emmanuel Macron.
‘Changing dimensions’
The Canal+ event also aimed to showcase the diversity of talent it works with, many of whom took to the stage to thank the group for financing their shows.
The pay-TV group also highlighted its recent acquisition of MultiChoice, which became effective in September - a move that has increased Canal+’s subscriber base to over 40 million.
The group has just acquired an initial 34% stake in UGC, a major theatrical exhibitor as well as a film producer and distributor, and Saada admitted the company waas “changing dimensions”.
The group’s content subsidiary, StudioCanal, also took center stage at the event, positioning itself as a leading European studio and showcasing its extensive pipeline of high-profile movies and TV series.
The ‘Original+’ event title was not a reference to the channel’s slate of original programming, but rather to the fact that Canal+ was the first to use the ‘+’ as part of its branding, a point Saada stressed.
Nevertheless, Canal+ did highlight some of its upcoming originals for the year. These include Prisoner, an international manhunt action series starring Tahar Rahim, that was created by Matt Charman and is a co-venture with Sky.
Also highlighted was the sequel to Paris Has Fallen, titled Apollo Has Fallen, along with a TV series spin-off from the 15-year-old acclaimed French feature film A Prophet.
Political thriller Baron Noir is returning for a fourth season, while the organised crime unit series B.R.I. and Désordre, from stand-up comedian Florence Foresti, have both been renewed for a second season.
Canal+ has also boarded the second season of the Canadian series Empathie following its major success on the channel. In entertainment, the group will launch a French adaptation of NBC’s iconic Saturday Night Live.
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