Bad times for Molotov. A few days after having been obliged to make access to the M6 group’s channels paying, the video-on-demand platform must now give up broadcasting those of the TF1 group. The fault of a conviction pronounced last Friday by the judicial court of Paris and disclosed this Monday by Capital.
At the end of this decision, the platform recently bought in November by the American group FuboTV was ordered by the Paris court to pay 8.5 million euros to the TF1 group for “forgery”.
Worse, it now has 15 days to stop broadcasting the TF1 group’s channels, under penalty of a fine of 75,000 euros per day of delay. The Paris court justifies this decision by arguing that by continuing the distribution of TF1, LCI or TFX for lack of agreement, “Molotov has committed acts of infringement of the neighboring rights of the audiovisual communication company”.
Paid distribution?
This new setback comes against a backdrop of disagreement between Motolov and TF1 on the remuneration associated with the broadcasting of the channels of the subsidiary of the Bouygues group. Molotov indeed contested the new price list demanded by TF1 for the resumption of its channels. Note that another action, also brought by Molotov, brings the streaming platform to the television group. As a reminder, the platform was already ordered in early December to pay more than 7 million euros to M6 in a similar case, before the two parties reached a broadcasting agreement a few days later.
An amicable agreement similar to the latter could be sealed with TF1, the management of the television group indicating that “discussions are still underway” concerning the financial conditions of broadcasting. Once again, it would be a question of making access to the group’s channels and associated services (such as replay for example) paying. Still, this should not do the business of Molotov, whose offer would necessarily be less attractive in the eyes of the general public.
Recall that the platform managed by Jean-Claude Blanc was bought in early November by the American group FuboTV, specializing in sports streaming, for the sum of 164.3 million euros.