The TF1, France Télévisions and M6 groups announced this Wednesday evening the shutdown and dissolution of the Salto company and platform. The end of a very short adventure.
Launched on October 20, 2020, Salto will not have passed the symbolic milestone of 3 years of activity. The decision was in the cards, we were telling you about it several weeks ago, and for a few days now, the platform has not been accepting new subscribers, leaving us to guess the inevitable. On February 15, France Télévisions, M6 and TF1 further formalized the end of Salto by formalizing through a press release the termination of the service, which would have nearly 1 million subscribers to date.
The abandonment of the merger between TF1 and M6, a fatal blow to Salto
The three actors behind Salto do not hide it: the abandonment of the merger project between TF1 and M6 will have been too much for the platform. It could indeed have been taken over by the new entity created, which will ultimately not see the light of day. ” Salto shareholders judged that the conditions were not met for the lawsuit [du service] in its current shareholding, due to the complex and constrained governance of this alliance and the refusal of most Internet service provider operators to distribute the platform like American platforms “, we read in the press release.
Since Salto evokes the reluctance of ISPs to distribute his platform, it is interesting to specify that a few hours before, before ARCOM where he defended his “SIX” project aimed at recovering channel 6 of the DTT currently occupied by M6, Xavier Niel split with a small spade against Salto. The boss of Iliad and Free attributes his failure to the fact that it is ” a paid platform, with free content “, already broadcast (for the most part) on television. ” That’s just it, the failure of Salto “, he outbid.
The shareholders also add that they have received certain proposals, described as ” expressions of interest (we may think of Canal+), but they confirm that they have not been able to reach an agreement.
What short-term calendar for Salto?
As required by procedure, the partners of Salto have appointed a legal representative who will be responsible for the liquidation of the company, owned equally by the TF1, France Télévisions and M6 groups. The firm in charge of the case will specify ” at short notice » the schedule for shutting down the platform and subscriptions.
The three actors specify that a ” specific communication will be sent very soon to Salto subscribers to inform them of the consequences on their current subscription “.
As regards the employees of the Salto company, they will be subject to a collective redundancy procedure. The three groups nevertheless undertake to make their best efforts to offer new opportunities to Salto employees “. The end of a short adventure that never really took off.
8