Canal+ has acquired OCS, Orange’s streaming platform, after two years of negotiations. Vincent Bolloré’s group thus gets its hands on a service with more than 3 million subscribers, but in a delicate financial situation.
OCS, Orange’s streaming platform, has just been acquired by the Canal+ group, we learned via a press release. A major transaction in the French landscape, OCS being a major service with more than 3 million subscribers.
The transaction is now finalized after more than two years of negotiations. Canal and Orange have signed a “memorandum of understanding” which will lead to the full inclusion of OCS in the group’s bouquets. However, Orange did not sell OCS, since the service is loss-making. The company would have paid less than 100 million euros to Canal to give it the rights, specify Les Echos, but no official figure has been given.
Canal + acquires OCS, a struggling platform
Canal + already owned just over 33% of the capital of OCS, but will eventually go further. A stroke of poker, given that the service is in deficit, indebted to losses, still according to Les Echos. Losses that would be estimated between 400 and 500 million euros. OCS, already distributed by Canal, would be fully incorporated into the group’s strategy. There will be work to straighten the bar, given that the period is complicated for the service. The latter has indeed won his fame (and his subscribers) mainly thanks to the HBO series, of which he had acquired the rights. To watch Game of Thrones in the heyday, it was through him that you had to go.
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Warner has other projects for HBO series internationally, wishing to develop its own services. Thereby, OCS lost the rights to many content on 1er last january. Game of Thrones, The Leflovers, Rome, The Sopranos, His Dark Material, Euphoria… all the force of the platform was annihilated in one fell swoop.
A very hard blow, therefore, which could have greatly played in favor of the sale. For the moment, we don’t yet know what Canal’s plans for OCS are, but the platform still has some great things, many series (original or not) but above all films. Assets on which the Bolloré group should bet.