Rémi Jacob, with AFP
modified to
10:19 a.m., February 14, 2023
The long agony of the Salto platform, once supposed to be a “French Netflix”, could soon end with its disappearance, expected for weeks but which now seems imminent. Launched in October 2020 and owned equally by France Télévisions, TF1 and M6, Salto announced on its homepage on Monday that it was no longer taking new subscribers.
Ongoing procedures to “turn the Salto page”
An announcement accompanied by what looks very much like an epitaph: “Thank you to all Salto subscribers for sharing with us their desire and their enthusiasm for a Made in France streaming platform”. From a source familiar with the matter, formal announcements on the future of the platform could take place “by Wednesday evening”.
But as of Monday evening, the M6 group, which presented its 2022 results, announced that it had provisioned in its accounts its share of the liquidation costs of Salto, for around 22 million euros, and redirected its investments towards its own streaming. “Procedures are underway to turn the Salto page and focus on our business”, “we are more of a company that finances its activities through advertising”, commented the chairman of the management board of M6 Nicolas de Tavernost.
A dissolution would not be a surprise: the future of the platform has been compromised for months and the abandonment at the end of September of the marriage between TF1 and M6, to which France Télévisions had to resell its share to complete its budget. On January 20, the public group had recorded its disengagement from the platform during an extraordinary central social and economic committee (CSE).
A confused strategy
Before that, the investigation site The Informed had revealed that only a Spanish company, Agile, was a candidate for a takeover of Salto as a whole. Salto employed 42 people on permanent contracts and 8 on fixed-term contracts in mid-January, for an estimated number of subscribers of around 800,000. The subscription cost 7.99 euros per month (or 5.80 for a subscription taken over one year).
If the disappearance of the platform is confirmed, its employees could find positions in the shareholder companies, from which some of them also came. Beyond the failure of the TF1/M6 merger, Salto suffered from a confused strategy and multiple obstacles, in a market dominated by American giants like Netflix, Disney+ or Amazon Prime Video.
On the catalog side, the platform supposed to promote the “radiance of French and European audiovisual creation” was distinguished by some pretty exclusives coming straight… from America, with in particular the program “Friends, reunions” or the sequel from “Sex and the City”. It also offered many repeat broadcasts or previews of programs produced by its shareholders, such as the daily soap operas of TF1 (Here it all starts, tomorrow belongs to us) and France 2 (Such a big sun).
Salto couldn’t compete with Netflix
But TF1, M6 and France Télévisions have also developed their own online platforms, which have competed with Salto by offering some of its programs free of charge and by offering more and more online previews.
Similarly, TF1 and M6 have each launched a paid subscription streaming service without advertising, for 2.99 euros per month the first year, then 3.99 euros per month, which is less expensive than Salto. The latter also suffered from a delay in ignition: announced in 2018, it took more than a year for this unprecedented project bringing together private channels and public service to receive the green light from the Competition Authority, the file having passed through the hands of the European authorities.
The launch, scheduled for the first quarter of 2020, had been postponed to the fall, therefore after the rise of Netflix and the arrival of Disney + during confinement. The constraints imposed on shareholders by the Competition Authority, in particular in terms of supply, represented an “obstacle course”, assured Nicolas de Tavernost two years ago before the Senate. “We are doing everything so that it does not work”, he had launched.
Finally, Salto could hardly compete in terms of financing, with 135 million euros invested by its shareholders, far from the billions disbursed by Netflix and others.