HBO suspends its partnership with French broadcaster OCS

While the contract between the American channel and the French broadcaster is coming to an end, the future of the latter seems uncertain.

Last October, Warner Bros., which owns HBO, announced the signing of a contract with Amazon Prime Video. This provided for the exclusivity of all HBO Max programs, the channel’s streaming service. OCS, of which a large part of the most popular programs came from its partnership with the American channel, could therefore experience a considerable drain on its subscribers.

What will become of OCS?

If it is established that the programs of HBO Max will leave the Orange streaming service, it is not yet known if this will concern all the films and series which are there for the moment. But it is already a difficult blow for OCS, because it is the most watched series on its platform, and therefore its real loss leader, which will disappear from its offer. Works like The Last of Us Where House of the Dragon will thus be withdrawn from the broadcaster’s offer.

The news is terrible for Orange’s SVoD: despite its more than 3 million subscribers, the service is in deficit, and the announcement of new exclusive content will probably have a hard time making people forget the departure of these behemoths. To try to save the furniture, a merger with the services OCS City and OCS Choc is already planned for January 12, and the shadow of the takeover is becoming more and more threatening. Canal + would be in particular in the ranks, but the encrypted channel will probably wait to know the extent of the damage before deciding.

How to follow HBO programs?

As we have seen, the future of HBO programs in France remains uncertain. So, if you are interested in the biggest productions, and especially the most recent, these will soon be hosted on Amazon Prime Video. On the other hand, uncertainty remains for the others.

Anyway, this partnership between HBO and Amazon should not last more than one or two years. Indeed, the American channel plans to launch its own VoD service in France in 2024, and it seems widely possible that it will recover the exclusivity of its programs on this occasion. To be sure to legally watch the episodes of House of the Dragon as soon as they are released, you will therefore have to take out at least one subscription to a streaming site. One more.

Sources: West France, hitek