Maxime Saada had hinted that he was going to be a hit, that he was ready to tighten the purse strings. It has not happened. Canal + has finally signed an agreement with French cinema “Extending until 2024 at least one historic partnership of more than 30 years”, The pay-TV group said in a statement Thursday, December 2.
Better still, the Vivendi subsidiary agreed to increase its cash payment. Each year, between 2022 and 2024, it will pay 190 million euros per year for a hundred films pre-financed and broadcast on Canal + and Ciné +, compared to 160 million euros today. If we include its unencrypted channels, the French group brings its investment between 205 and 210 million euros, a total of around 600 million euros over three years.
While until now, these sums were calculated as a percentage of Canal + ‘s turnover, the group has undertaken to pay a flat rate for a hundred works per year, in line with the trend of the past 10 years. . “The calculation on the plates was becoming more and more problematic. The package allows you to have visibility and readability ”, explains Mathieu Debusschère, general delegate of the civil society of the Authors and Producers (ARP), signatory of the agreement. At the same time, French cinema settles its dispute with Canal +, which owed it 32 million euros. Other side of the coin, the 7the art will not receive a cent more if the turnover of Canal + explodes in the coming years.
Generous
If the Vivendi subsidiary is so generous, it is also because it wishes to impose its rules in terms of media chronology, this inter-professional agreement which sets the deadlines for the screening of films after their theatrical release, depending on the nature of the distributor. Thus, according to the text signed with the cinema organizations including The world has taken note, Canal + even makes it a condition precedent: without a new media chronology, the newly concluded agreement would be null and void.
Negotiated for many months between professionals (cinemas, free and pay channels, etc.), the main stake of this compromise is to bring streaming platforms, such as Netflix, Disney, Amazon Prime Video, into the French cultural exception. Until then, the latter had to wait 36 months to screen films released in theaters. But since the entry into force of the Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) Directive, which requires them to invest 25% of their turnover in audiovisual and cinematographic production, they want to obtain a more advantageous broadcasting window.
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