PARIS (Reuters) – The Canal+ group is calling on the government to intervene with TF1 to allow it to broadcast several of its channels free of charge on DTT, at the heart of a dispute between the two groups, the president of Canal+ told Sunday newspaper.
“Our relations with the TF1 group are part of private commercial relations, in which the public authorities cannot interfere,” said Maxime Saada. “The public authorities could, on the other hand, call on TF1 to respect the obligation to make its signal available free of charge, which we are calling for.”
Canal+ (Vivendi group) announced on Friday that it would give up broadcasting TF1, TMC, TFX, TF1 Séries Films and LCI because of a major review of the TF1 group’s commercial requirements as of August 31, and in particular the “payment of very substantial pay.”
“The free TNT channels – such as those of the TF1 group – are free for the general public and must remain so”, repeated Maxime Saada in the JDD.
The Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul-Malak, for her part, asked Canal+ to resume broadcasting the channels of the TF1 group on DTT, Le Parisien reported on Saturday.
In a letter sent Friday to Maxime Saada, of which Le Parisien had a copy, the minister calls on the management “to its sense of responsibility and of the general interest to avoid depriving hundreds of thousands of households of the reception of the all DTT channels.”
TF1 for its part expressed its regrets on Friday after Canal+’s decision and said it was open to discussions to find a quick resolution and avoid penalizing several million viewers.
(Gilles Guillaume, edited by Camille Raynaud)
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