Unfortunately, people have gotten into the habit of arriving a bit late. He'll be careful, it's not serious since it's mostly the left side that is massively... well, more numerous in being late than the right and the center, but... I'm not in proportion. And RL reminds the vice-president of the rules. Well, that was obviously a joke. I wish everyone welcome on behalf of all to Niè Caniller who joins the Commission and Laurence Garnier who should not be late, who returns to the commission. Before welcoming Maxime Saada, we have a quick point: we need to designate a rapporteur on the bill to protect the school of the Republic and the personnel who work... This bill, you know, comes from the work we did last year with our colleagues from the Law Commission following the assassination of Samuel Paty. I propose to entrust the conduct of this work on this text, which we will debate on March 6 in public session on the UC group's niche, to our colleague Annick Billon. If there is no opposition... there is none, so it is decided. It was by consent, I understand. Yes, I thought so.
Well, my dear colleagues, we have the pleasure of welcoming today Mr. Saada, Chairman of the Management Board of the Canal+ Group. Mr. President, thank you for making yourself available and for participating in this hearing. At the head of the Canal+ group for nearly a decade now, you are piloting the evolution of the company, which recently celebrated its 40th anniversary, in a rapidly changing environment, which we will of course discuss during this hearing. Created in 1984, Canal+ revolutionized the French audiovisual landscape before becoming over the years one of the largest media groups worldwide, now counting 27 million subscribers, a third of them in France. The year 2024 marked a turning point with several major strategic decisions. Canal+ made its entry on the London Stock Exchange in December last year as part of the spin-off of the Vivendi group. The group also undertook the largest acquisition in its history, that of the South African company MultiChoice. In December last year, you announced the withdrawal of your four pay channels from DTT from next June. This withdrawal ends the historic presence of Canal+ on channel 4 of French television and completes its transformation into a digital platform aggregating content. You mentioned to justify this decision the economic consequences of the non-renewal of channel C8 decided by Arcom last July, a decision you are contesting before the Council of State. You have more generally criticized an increasingly constraining fiscal and regulatory environment, in particular due to the possible increase from 10% to 20% in the VAT rate applicable to your services. We are of course questioning the repercussions of these transformations on the creation sector in general and on cinema in particular, to which Canal+ has been linked since its origin. The group invests each year 220 million euros in its financing, in accordance with its commitments which are being renegotiated as part of the media chronology. The transition to a new broadcasting regime also occurs in a context of heightened competition with major international platforms. The rise of international players like Disney, Netflix, or Amazon has indeed disrupted the sector. It also highlights a number of regulatory asymmetries that are the subject of the second part of the senatorial bill, which will likely be debated in the National Assembly in the coming weeks. The end of your distribution contract with Disney, the ongoing negotiations on cinema financing and media chronology, and the growing ambitions of the platforms raise many questions, Mr. President, on which we are very eager to hear you, because Canal+ is not only a key economic player; the group also plays an essential role culturally and therefore retains all our attention. I will now, Mr. President, give you the floor for an opening statement. After that, of course, we will exchange through questions and answers, but before that, I must remind you that this hearing is broadcast live on the Senate website. Mr. President, I give you the floor.
Mr. President, Madam Senators, Gentlemen Senators, Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you for your invitation, which allows me to present to you and come back to the news and the issues of the Canal+ group, which you have so well introduced, Mr. President. Since we are January 29, I still have a few hours to wish you all my best wishes for this new year. I am speaking before you today as Chairman of the Management Board of the Canal+ group, which I joined more than 20 years ago and which I have been leading for more than 10 years, and I am proud to accompany it in its transformation alongside passionate and talented teams. This transformation, as you said, has taken great steps in 2024. During the year, we acquired the pay TV bouquet OCS and its film and series co-production subsidiary Orange Studio. Then Canal+ integrated Dailymotion, the only French video platform fully supported by advertising with global reach, with more than 400 million monthly visitors. Soon, the activities and teams of GVA, a fiber optic access provider in Africa, will join the Canal+ group. In November last year, the group celebrated its 40th anniversary, 40 years dedicated to offering the best of sports and creation. And a few weeks after celebrating its anniversary, as you said, Canal+ opened a brand new chapter in its history with its stock exchange listing in London on December 16 last year. This step, which we can come back to, is the culmination of a strategy of reinvention carried out in just a few years and which now allows the group to be in marching order to establish its unique model facing the largest global audiovisual players.
You know, the television market has profoundly changed. You are the first witnesses to this; we have already been able to discuss it together, since I have had the honor of speaking before you several times over the past 10 years, a decade marked by increasing obstacles and upheavals, some of which sometimes seemed to announce the fall of Canal+. This new world is characterized by globalized and digitalized markets that have seen the formation of new operators, essentially American. These have come to position themselves on our segments and invest massively in content, with the competitive advantage of being able to amortize their costs on a subscriber base first American, then global, which has continued to grow. Netflix first, then Amazon with Prime Video, Apple with Apple TV+, soon followed by Hollywood studios: Disney with Disney+, Paramount with Paramount+, Universal with Peacock, and Warner with Max. These mastodons have been created, some displaying subscriber bases of several hundred million – 302 million subscribers for Netflix, now present in 190 countries. To face these new systemic giants, the Canal+ group had no choice but to rethink itself, because Canal+ was doing very badly. The results for fiscal 2015 recorded a loss of more than 260 million euros, and the budget for fiscal 2016 was in deficit of 400 million euros. At the same time, Canal+ was hit full force by the profound and accelerated changes in markets and sectors, as well as in cultural usage. Exposed to these major endogenous and exogenous threats, the very survival of the group was called into question. Faced with this situation threatening the very existence of Canal+, our challenge was to find the keys not only to survive but to perpetuate our model, with one asset: the support, resources, and patience of our parent company Vivendi, and behind Vivendi, a reference shareholder committed for the long term: the Bolloré group.
How did we integrate this notion of sustainability at all levels into Canal+'s strategy? First, we had to recover economically from the massive losses I mentioned. We analyzed all our cost-saving levers through the prism of a desire to reduce Canal+'s costs. All avenues of savings were exploited, except for our investments in creation and content, and at the cost of considerable efforts by our teams, we achieved nearly one billion euros in savings. And we reinvested these savings to regain growth after years of decline. The return to growth first came through an ambitious plan for the digital transformation of our group. The group placed innovation and technological diversification at the center of its project. Created in 2013, our proprietary French digital platform now carries more than 2,000 linear and on-demand channels worldwide. It has now reached the best market standards and we have deployed it in more than 40 countries. With 1 billion euros in annual investment and more than 1,000 engineers, mainly based in France, the Canal+ group has become a major technology player. The robustness of our technological tool has allowed us to adopt a unique positioning in the world as the first super-aggregator of platforms and content, capable of offering a premium cultural offering meeting the expectations of subscribers who are dissatisfied or even lost faced with the fragmentation of offers, thanks to strategic partnerships of scale with the largest global players, such as Netflix, Paramount, DAZN, Max, Apple, with whom the group has an unprecedented multi-year agreement in the world for Apple TV+, which we have freshly enriched with Apple Music at the end of last year. Canal+ is the only player to offer the best content from platforms in addition to its own content. This digital transformation has also contributed to broadening the distribution of Canal+. Beyond agreements with our historic partners, the telecom operators, Canal+ is now present on all connected devices, from gaming consoles to, most recently, the group has signed unprecedented distribution agreements with global leader LG for the distribution of the Canal+ platform in more than 40 geographies, and with a French champion in its sector, Renault, for access to the entire Canal+ offering on board its connected vehicles.
Parallel to this technological diversification, the group has undertaken diversification projects to free itself from any form of dependence and to gain agility. I am obviously thinking of the internationalization of the group. In 2015, the Canal+ group had 11 million subscribers; today, as you said, Mr. President, it has nearly 27 million in 50 countries. Canal+ has freed itself from its geographical dependence on France. Our objective is now to reach, in the medium term, and I have announced it publicly, a subscriber base of between 50 and 100 million to join the global top 5 of audiovisual groups. This growth will be made possible in particular by taking stakes in our main geographical areas. We are betting on both mature markets in Europe and other high-growth territories, particularly Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. The average economic growth there is 4.5% per year with very favorable demographics. We have also seized an external growth opportunity with M7, which contributed to the growth of our base with more than 2 million subscribers in Eastern Europe. But most of our growth has been achieved organically on all continents. Today we hold 37.2% of the streaming platform Viu, which is established in Southeast Asia; we also have an option to take control. We are also the largest shareholder of the Nordic platform Viaplay, with 29.3% of the capital; it is currently in restructuring and we do not consolidate it. Finally, as you also said, the group has begun the most transformative and ambitious acquisition in its history with MultiChoice, the leader of pay TV in English-speaking and Portuguese-speaking Africa, of which we now hold 45.2% of the capital. This acquisition would allow the Canal+ group to reach a critical size of more than 40 million subscribers. To this geographical independence was added the end of our dependence on a single generation of subscribers.
The group has completely overhauled its commercial positioning and its offers. We have diversified the profile of our subscribers by attracting a younger audience through the launch of no-commitment offers and by significantly lowering our entry prices. We have just recently announced the perpetuation of our young offer rap+ due to its success with this new audience. We have thus lifted our generational dependence; young people are returning, with more than 500,000 having individually subscribed to Canal+ and joined us in the last 18 months. Finally, the last lever of our diversification: the end of the group's dependence on any single content, as part of a profound overhaul of our editorial strategy. Some may recall the concerns raised about the sustainability of Canal+ following the loss of the Ligue 1 rights in 2018. As you can imagine, that day remains intact in my memory; it marked a turning point. Since then, the group has freed itself from any form of editorial dependence so as never to find itself in that situation again. We have broadened our offering to provide the widest panel of content in our history in all areas: sports, films, series, documentaries, animation, and finally, encrypted live programs. Canal+'s ability to produce its own content constitutes for me the final building block of our independence in content. StudioCanal, which today owns 19 production companies around the world, will become an even more essential asset of the group in this regard. Finally, beyond reducing dependence on certain content, our desire to perpetuate the Canal+ model has resulted in securing rights for French sports. Beyond France, we now offer the most attractive long-term rights, such as the Champions League, first acquired for France, then for Austria and French-speaking Africa until 2027. 2024 confirmed the status of Canal+ as the first partner of the Premier League in the world with the acquisition of the exclusivity of the rights to this championship in Poland and Myanmar until 2028, bringing to more than 50 the territories where Canal+ broadcasts this exceptional competition. We are now also the world's leading broadcaster of Formula 1 and MotoGP, signed in France, Switzerland, Africa, and Asia until 2029. It is in the same spirit that we have wished to inscribe the French cinematic exception in this long-term vision. The group proposed for more than 2 years to the professional cinema organizations to renew our agreement for an extended period of 5 years for a total amount exceeding 1 billion euros, to which we proposed to add the obligations inherited from the acquisition of OCS. I imagine we will come back to this subject. You see, the Canal+ group has not only adapted; it has above all established sustainability as a cardinal value. This notion of long-term sustainability is also at the heart of our positioning with cultural, cinema, and audiovisual players, but also sports, because at Canal+ we consider that sport is an integral part of our culture. Thus, one of the particularities of Canal+ compared to all its competitors is its position as a strategic long-term partner of the sectors. Let's talk first about French cinema. I take this opportunity to recall its absolutely unique character. Its trajectory of theatrical attendance, rising since 2022 to reach more than 180 million visitors in 2024, is today envied by cinemas around the world.
Better still, 44% of this attendance was captured by French films, including of course The Count of Monte Cristo and A Little Something Extra, which Canal+ financed. This figure is the highest since 2008, far ahead of its European neighbors. In reality, French cinema is today the only European cinema that has survived. France is the first European country, I said, in terms of market share of national productions. For comparison, in 2022, France's 44% was 21% in Italy, 22% in Spain, 27% in Germany, and 30% in the United Kingdom. French cinema is today one of the most awarded cinemas. You know, France is the most represented nationality in the 10 major festivals; almost a quarter of all titles selected in the 10 largest international festivals are French, not to mention the record broken a few days ago by Emilia Pérez and The Substance in terms of Oscar nominations. To put it simply, the success of French cinema is unique and it would not exist without the support of Canal+. This support is first reflected in a massive and sustainable volume of investment in content. To be clear, the group contributes more than all other actors combined – free channels and international platforms. In 2024, Canal+ financed more than 260 French and European films. Each year, several dozen films simply could not be made without the contribution of the group's channels. In 2024, we bought – pre-purchased, sorry – 121 films. 45 of the 121 were exclusively financed by the channels of the Canal+ group. The Story of Souleymane, The Night of the 12th, or The Goldman Case would not have seen the light of day without the support of Canal+. This role as the leading financier of cinematographic creation in France is linked to an amount above our obligations, the fruit of a historic agreement with the unions representing the cinema professions. This amount is broken down into pre-purchases and film purchases. In 2024, the participation of the Canal+ group amounted to more than 220 million euros. To these obligations are added our sectoral taxes, which finance the budget of the CNC and amount to more than 50 million euros. In addition, StudioCanal invested more than 200 million euros in French and European films. In total, Canal+ will have invested nearly 500 million euros in French and European cinema in 2024, an investment amount also valid for previous years. I nevertheless emphasize that this amount is linked to the term of an interprofessional agreement that expired on December 31, 2024.
Beyond its massive financial support for French cinema, Canal+ is a first-rate partner and without equivalent for diversity in France. The films we invest in are produced by nearly 130 different production companies independent of Canal+. No other actor is a partner of so many independent cinema production companies. This search for diversity in our investments obviously contributes to the vitality of the French creative industrial fabric and significantly contributes to the direct and indirect jobs associated with creation. One area of improvement in sectoral diversity that I would like to emphasize is the place of women in creation. We welcome the positive evolution of our indicators, following the particular attention of the Canal+ group in its pre-purchases. In 2024, 27% of the films we pre-purchased were directed by women, whereas this figure was only 21% in 2021. Among the first films we financed, 40% were directed by women. It's better, but it's not enough. That's why StudioCanal created a dedicated fund for creation carried by women to be an actor of this change. This fund echoes the relational logic to which we are very attached. At the heart of it is the conviction that our partners and ourselves need long-term visibility. At the forefront of our partners are the talents of creation, the artists. We are always committed to fostering their emergence and supporting them in their development, including in the most difficult times. We have thus accompanied and supported over time dozens of renowned filmmakers, often since their first short film, to name just a few: Justine Triet, Jeanine, Audrey, Jul, Jacques Audiard, Cédric Klapisch, Lad, Dominique Moll, Albert Dupontel, Michel Anavissus, and Mathieu de la Porte and Alexandre de la Patellière, who directed the famous The Count of Monte Cristo. We are today committed to extending the reach of talents by offering them all classical and digital supports and all scenes of expression, from the small to the big screen, up to the stage of the Olympia, which has also joined the Canal+ group. More globally, this conviction in the importance of sustainable relationships translates into sector partnerships.
You recently worked, Mr. President and Mr. Rapporteur, on the financing of football, and you highlighted in passing the role of broadcasters in the sports ecosystem in France. You know, audiovisual rights have just supported the solidarity mechanisms that link the financing of professional sport to amateur sport. That's why we consider that our long-term vision with our partners such as the National Rugby League or the French Football Federation contributes to perpetuating the virtuous and solidarity-based functioning based on audiovisual rights, while continuing to offer our subscribers the best of sport for a long time. Our willingness for partnership cooperation is also at the heart of our approach to maximizing the value of the sectors through our editorial know-how. We talk about it too rarely. We thus attach great importance to the exposure of content, to its visibility, the importance of which is often underestimated by rights holders. For cinema, for example, we seek to maximize the visibility of works to maximize their value over their entire life cycle of 6 months. A film in first broadcast achieves an average overall audience of more than 1.1 million viewers on Canal+. We offer 8 weekly cinema programs, i.e., 380 programs each year representing 120 hours of annual programming, not counting documentaries dedicated to cinema. In light of our history, we give a special place to French creation, both mainland and overseas. Where Disney+ or Netflix display less than 10% of French titles in their catalog, Canal+ invests massively in French content and makes it visible and travels. On overseas creation, I will cite just one example: the series Wish that we recently produced, which highlighted more than 100 overseas artists, valued on our dedicated channel Canal+ Outre-mer. This local production has enjoyed incredible local reach and in mainland France. By the same principle of sustainability that I have been talking about for a few moments, we could not consent to such investments without thinking about protecting the sectors and their ecosystems, because to truly create value, we must protect it. It is this ambition that drives us to prioritize the fight against piracy everywhere we operate. Protecting the value of our investments represents a vital issue that concerns all sectors supported by audiovisual rights. I recall the latest figures from Arcom: in 2023, the loss of revenue caused by piracy of audiovisual content and sports event broadcasts is estimated at 1.5 billion euros, including 290 million for the sports sector. Added to this is a frightening 420 million euros in tax and social revenues escaping the state. Faced with this common scourge, we must go further. This is the meaning of the fight led by the APS association to protect sports rights. I take this opportunity to thank your commission, very mobilized through the voices of Mr. President and Mr. Savin, thank you for your courage and your unwavering support on this dossier, because it takes courage, which now more than ever calls for a general mobilization against the explosion and trivialization of IPTV offers.
You see, Canal+ carries a project reconciling culture and industry, betting on these axes of differentiation and relying on a long-term vision to create value both for the group and for the sectors, while carrying an ambition for French creation and the national market to which we remain attached. Nevertheless, and I will conclude with this, the Canal+ group finds itself today at a crossroads in France. What place will the French market continue to take in its project? The application of an industrial vision, yet necessary for the sustainability of any economic ecosystem, is cruelly lacking in the French creation sector. You see, nobody listens to me when I talk about this, and that's where you see we have a problem. It is this absence of vision that led Ligue 1 into its current dramatic situation, and on which you have wished to work within your commission. It is what risks leading French cinema into the same situation, and it is what weighs today on all French actors of the sector. This absence of vision of an entire system translates into short-term decisions and uncoordinated behaviors that threaten to cause the French companies of the sector to flounder, and beyond threatening, they are already penalizing them compared to their global competitors. This absence of vision also translates into a regulation that has become a true exquisite corpse of community and national norms, destroying the ground on which the full potential of our industry should be expressed, preventing any long-term vision. This regulation hinders the expansion of French actors, much more regulated than their international competitors. The list of regulations that apply to French actors and from which international actors escape is long; we can discuss it again. It is the same short-termist logic that led to recent regulatory decisions that may respond to some logic – I do not deny it – but which, taken together, threaten everything that makes Canal+'s strength in France, not only for the company but for its entire environment. I am thinking in particular of the increase in the dedicated tax paid to the CNC, the continuous threats on its VAT rate, yet linked to its status as the leading financier of French cinema, the decision not to renew C8, the first channel of DTT. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to all the employees on whom this arbitrary decision of Arcom directly weighs, even though one of its missions is to support the transformations of the audiovisual and digital landscape for both the public and professionals. Most recently, the Competition Authority, which I recall is already responsible for the disappearance of the SVOD platform CanalPlay for not having been able to project the competition of Netflix, has self-referred to investigate the pay TV and cinema sector, thus constraining all sectoral discussions of the Canal+ group, while major deadlines are now opening, notably for the future of our national model of creation. Thanks to the transformation of its model, Canal+ will succeed in continuing its development despite this hostile national environment. The group will continue its diversification strategy and its international development. But will it be the same for the French creative fabric, within which I include sport? I recalled earlier that French cinema is certainly unique in the world, but it is today largely financed and supported thanks to the generalist model of Canal+. You will understand that our ambition to defend the safeguarding of our cultural exception is today constrained. Canal+ may reduce its investments in cinema, even if it means having a less favorable position in the media chronology.
You mentioned it very rightly earlier, there is a renegotiation in progress, the previous agreement expired a few weeks ago, and that connects to the question I wanted to ask about Disney+. We have seen a change in strategy from Disney, in any case with the desire to invest massively in cinema, more massively in cinema. And so, do you see this as, I would say, a rather aggressive attitude towards Canal+? Or in relation to what you said earlier about the phenomenon of dependence, you talked about football very rightly with Ligue 1. Is it, like for football, like for sport, Canal+ ready on the question of cinema to, I would say, turn the page, change paradigm, and be less dependent on cinema than what Canal+ has been in recent years, in recent decades? Is that a possibility or is it a fantasy? Thank you.
Thank you. Since you have also addressed the questions of sport, I will give the floor to Michel Savin, president of the study group on sport.
Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, you said it, the Senate recently conducted an information mission on the financialization of professional football. You must have heard about it. After trying to obtain a billion euros for the season, the French Professional Football League saw its call for tenders fail and had to unfortunately sell the rights for 400 million euros on average over the period 2024-2025 to DAZN, while the objectives of 1.5 million subscribers for the channel seem almost unattainable. The exit clause of DAZN casts great uncertainty on the future of French football. In fact, it is difficult to build... I will also bounce back on questions relating to cinema that my colleague Cédric outlined. You very rightly mentioned in your opening statement that Canal+ invests massively in cinema, more than its legal obligations. I have a question: what would cause Canal+ to potentially reduce its investments in cinema, even if it means having a less favorable position in the media chronology? You mentioned it very rightly earlier, there is a renegotiation in progress, the previous agreement expired a few weeks ago, and that connects to the question I wanted to ask about Disney+. We have seen a change in strategy from Disney, in any case with the desire to invest massively in cinema, more massively in cinema. And so, do you see this as, I would say, a rather aggressive attitude towards Canal+? Or in relation to what you said earlier about the phenomenon of dependence, you talked about football very rightly with Ligue 1. Is it, like for football, like for sport, Canal+ ready on the question of cinema to, I would say, turn the page, change paradigm, and be less dependent on cinema than what Canal+ has been in recent years, in recent decades? Is that a possibility or is it a fantasy? Thank you.
Thank you. I will give you the floor to answer this first series of questions, knowing that there will be others afterwards.
So, was the objective of leaving DTT the change of ownership? I think there was a question around that. First, we contested this analysis for the Canal+ group, which would have potentially constrained us with our DTT frequencies to have a problem, an obstacle to our listing. Then, I think that as often, we gave in advance... I am very often very transparent on Canal+'s policy. The problem I have is that sometimes we are not believed. But despite numerous examples: TF1 when we fell out, we said we would cut TF1, nobody believed us, we cut TF1, they came back to reason. When we had a subject with Disney, Disney thought that Canal could not do without Disney, but in reality Canal can do without Disney because the economic conditions proposed were out of reach for the Canal+ group for the renewal of a possible agreement with Disney. Ligue 1, I'll come back to it, but it's the same nature: we said, as you said, before the call for tenders that we would not participate, so I mean everything was clear. And for DTT, when we were heard with Laetitia Ménassé, who is here, our Secretary General, we were very clear: we said from the moment C8 is taken away from us, Canal+ will withdraw. We said it at each hearing, we did seven, I missed one, maybe that's why we got it. But each time we said it, we linked, we explained why. The ecosystem of Canal+ on DTT is a few tens of thousands of subscribers, it has greatly reduced, it only worked because there were advertising revenues linked to DTT exposure with a sales house that had to work on both C8 and Canal+. From the moment we cut off the main advertising revenue of the Canal+ group in France with C8, which was the main advertising revenue, and we considerably amputate the potential advertising revenue for Canal+, there is no longer any interest for Canal to stay on DTT, especially since, as we will come back to, there are a whole bunch of constraints linked to this frequency that disappear. So we were honest, very clear, frank, and we applied it. We were not believed, I think that surprised, I felt it in our exchanges with Arcom afterwards, but as each time, we had said what would happen, what we would do, and we drew the conclusions of this decision, which I repeat, from my point of view, is arbitrary. I saw that there were some reactions in the room, but if there are explanations in this room for why C8 was removed, I'm all ears, because so far I haven't had any.
There is the subject of media chronology, there is the subject of VAT. Then, so, CStar is a profitable channel, so we have no intention of selling it, we are very happy with CStar as with CNews. So, on DTT, this decision of Arcom, what is very interesting is that when I look, I've been observing this sector for 20 years, a bit more because even when I wasn't in it I was observing it, and we saw that DTT was a revolution. When I arrived at the Canal+ group, I remember very well that I told the president at the time, 'Maybe we should take care of this subject,' and he told me, 'It won't happen, DTT, there are four audiovisual groups in France that dominate the sector: there is the Guard, there is Canal+, there is TF1, there is M6, none wants DTT, so it won't happen.' Fascinating when you see the power of the regulator and in this case the will of Dominique Bodhis at the time to implement this revolution. And at that time, we said, as often, satellite will disappear, DTT will supplant all technologies. Today, what we observe is that in all countries of the world, DTT is declining, it is regressing. In fact, satellite broadcasting, which was supposed to disappear, has resisted very well because it allows reaching the entire territory at relatively low costs, even if there is installation and a number of issues. But for the Canal+ group, we observe now with our presence in 52 countries that satellite is doing well, while DTT is gradually disappearing. So I think it's a matter of time, and I think this decision of Arcom accelerates what will happen to DTT, i.e., an inexorable decline, whether we like it or not. C8, for me, that's not even the subject. For me, the subject is that there is no country in the world except France where you take the first channel of television and decide to suppress it. That doesn't exist. There is no other market. We say, 'We have an actor, we like it or not, 4% audience,' that doesn't exist. And besides, without prejudging the value of the project that could come, which doesn't exist today, the positioning of these projects seems to me destined for confidential audiences. So we have a subject.
For television globally, which is already very, very attacked by TikTok and YouTube, will we still have young people tomorrow who will watch television? In this case, again, we like it or not, Cyril Hanouna, but young people watch Cyril Hanouna. In fact, they used to watch him and will watch him elsewhere tomorrow. There is a real issue of young audiences engaging with television, and when you cut a channel that is very popular—again, whether we like it or not—it is certain that you cut yourself off from certain populations who no longer watch television. So I think they accelerated this movement. Does that affect VAT? I don't think so. We indeed have a subject with Bercy, discussions that have lasted for several years, where television channels, I speak under your control obviously, benefit from a reduced rate. I remind you that the reduced rate for Canal+ is consubstantial with its financing of French cinema in the first film agreement at the creation of Canal+. It is the counterpart. It is written in the first cinema agreement, and also in the last one, that the counterpart for Canal+'s financing of the sector is its reduced VAT rate, which at the time was 5.5%, then it went to 7%, then to 10%. And today, a certain number of people in the tax administration claim that Canal+ should rather be subject to a 20% rate, which is the rate for platforms, indicating that Canal+ has transformed into a platform and therefore should be subject to a 20% rate. We contest this because beyond DTT—regardless of DTT, I would say Canal+ is first and foremost a set of linear channels, live channels. In fact, there is no equivalent channel in France today that broadcasts as much live and linear content as Canal+. Obviously in sports, in 2025 we will broadcast more than 500 football matches, just football. Then you can imagine all the other sports competitions and all the program broadcasts. I mentioned films, shows, live programs earlier—we have multiplied the shows in 2024. And then cinema broadcast live at 9 p.m. every night—well, almost every night you have a film on Canal+. So the majority of Canal+ today is the broadcasting of linear channels. The majority of the Canal+ group's investments today are in linear content. Obviously, when Canal+ offers platforms, as Netflix, Paramount, and others do, that portion of revenue is subject to the 20% rate. There is no debate, no issue. Part of Canal+'s offerings do correspond to that 20% VAT. But the question today is: how much? And certainly not the totality, from our point of view. There you go. Applying a 20% VAT rate to the whole of Canal+ would mean roughly 200 million euros in additional cost for Canal+, a group that is losing money in France, in fact, is still loss-making. We are doing better than the 250 and 400 million I mentioned earlier, but the group in France is still loss-making. That leads us not to have a choice, and when we were given the decision not to renew these eight DTT channels, we are forced to lay off nearly 200 people—more than 200 people even—within the Canal+ group, and a total of 700 direct and indirect jobs will be affected by this decision and will lose their jobs. When I count the service providers and freelancers, we are not in a position to absorb such shocks, neither today nor in the near future. Regarding cinema and Disney, as we said, I think I tried to explain it during my opening remarks. Long-term sustainability—in fact, to survive and develop in the world of giants—I was saying Netflix has 302 million subscribers—you need to have a long-term vision. Especially when you are Canal+ and you have almost disappeared several times in your existence, long-term is an obsession. Hence the signing of rights until 2029 or 2032 for rugby, signing very long cinema agreements with American studios—the longest possible term. Canal+ is committed for the long term, as I said, with its industry partners. Today we have chosen cinema as the major axis of differentiation for the Canal+ group—French, European, and American, since last year we had agreements with all the Hollywood studios. That was the first time since 1996 that Canal+ had such a situation. In 2024, the top 100 films at the French box office were broadcast on Canal+. That is the top 100 from 1 to 100—it's unprecedented. All the American platforms have chosen an audiovisual regime. You know that, unlike Canal+, platforms have the possibility to choose a cinema or audiovisual regime. They have all chosen an audiovisual regime, and therefore with greater obligations in audiovisual and, in return, a less favorable position in the media chronology than that of Canal+. I am explaining something you already know, but I am addressing everyone here just to remind you of the situation. When we did not renew the agreement with Disney, that agreement had three essential components: Disney channels available on the Canal+ platform disappeared from the platform; Disney films available exclusively on Canal+; and a distribution agreement for Disney+ where Canal+ was the main distributor of Disney+ in France. Disney chose, opportunistically and quite logically and rationally, to switch to cinema mode—why? To be able to broadcast its films on its platform earlier in the media chronology. Then you mentioned massive investment. I am a bit more cautious because we are talking about 35 million euros per year. That is significant, but I don't quite put it in the 'massive' category yet. And we are used to actors positioning themselves as competitors. You yourself said: is it a competitor or not? At Canal+, we are exactly in that same frame of mind. Is it a competitor? Is it a partner? Is it a competitor? If you can't handle ambiguity, you don't last long at Canal+. So for me, a competitor like Disney that invests in French cinema is fine—I have no problem with that. Where I start to have a problem is when the organizations came to see us and said Disney could potentially be at 6 months in the media chronology for an amount of 35 million euros, while Canal+ pays 220 million euros. Then I have a problem. That's why, again, I was very explicit at every opportunity I had to speak, especially during the Canal+ IPO, I said it first. I have been going on all the radio stations in France and in the press for three years to say: I am ready to renew the 220 million for 5 years. When we bought CS, we took on CS's obligations as well, so it's more than that—it's really 220 million, so it's over a billion, about 1.1 billion that we were ready to sign. For months, we met with organizations and said: 'Let's sign this.' But when I say there is no long-term vision here, I am talking about the entire ecosystem, including the film organizations, which did not wish to sign this agreement and then came back to us saying Disney at 6 months potentially for 35 million euros. So obviously we were not happy. So today, where are we? We are waiting to know. We now understand that Disney will potentially have 9 months, but we are waiting. Normally, we don't know. We don't know where the others are. We don't know where Netflix is. We don't know where the other platforms are. Obviously, the amount allocated by Canal+ depends on its position in the chronology. I ask only one thing: that the amounts be proportional to the position in the chronology. And that is where we have a small issue. If Disney is at 9 months for 35 million euros, there is an issue for Canal+ at 220 million euros for 6 months. So that offer is no longer on the table today. It will necessarily decrease. The question is: how much? Canal+'s obligations, the obligation base for Canal+, today leads to about 100 million euros in mandatory investment. So we were at 220; the obligation is around 100. And that is today because, as I said earlier, the generalist model of Canal+ favors Canal+'s financing of French cinema, because within Canal+ you have the Champions League, which I mentioned, for which Canal+ pays nearly 500 million euros per year, which contributes largely to Canal+'s revenue and therefore to its revenue base subject to the percentage I mentioned earlier. So today, the 100 million obligations are calculated on the total revenue of Canal+. If tomorrow—and this is the same, they say it's a threat, you'll never do it, etc.—but in fact we are studying it: if tomorrow Canal+ separates sports and cinema in its model, the obligation is divided by two. So the 100 million becomes mechanically 50. So the question today for the cinema organizations is theirs, because we, again, will adapt. We are forced to adapt. So we will adapt. The question is: does it prefer a model where Canal+ contributes heavily and there is a form of dependence—it must be recognized—of French cinema on Canal+, or does it want to free itself from this dependence but take the risk of losing 150 or 200 million euros in investment from the Canal+ group? Regarding Ligue 1, we haven't talked about it for a long time. The situation: why did we say we would not position ourselves on the call for tenders? Because from our point of view, I remind you that there was a prejudice that Canal+ suffered when 80% of the matches were granted to Amazon for 250 million euros per year, while Canal+ had to pay 332 million euros per year for 20% of the matches. For three years exactly, we suffered this prejudice, and we always made it clear that if there was no compensation in one way or another for this prejudice, Canal+ would no longer position itself on the Ligue 1 rights. So as long as there has been no compensation for this prejudice—and moreover, we are in cassation, sorry, back to the court of appeal right now, so the case is not completely closed—Canal+ will not return to Ligue 1. My view on the current situation is that it is indeed very complicated. It is very complicated for DAZN to find an economic equation with the amount invested. Today, I think that we must first, each time—I have been in this situation—thank DAZN for being present and having accepted and consented to 400 million euros, or 330 the first year for Ligue 1 and 100 million for beIN Sports, because otherwise... But I think we are not at the end of the story. I think that the situation will continue to deteriorate because if DAZN cannot balance economically, at some point economic reality imposes itself on all actors, including DAZN. So I don't think we are at the end of the story. There is no definitive decision at Canal+. There is no definitive decision. Decisions depend on circumstances. So to answer your question: is the door wide open? I would say no. Can it open tomorrow? That will depend on the conditions, but there is no definitive decision. We adapt, as I said. Regarding your recommendations about incompatibility between the commercial operator and the broadcaster—I see what you are aiming at. Honestly, I don't know the details. There are some rather surprising things. Granted, and moreover, I praised the work regardless of the particular interests of the Canal+ group on this subject. I truly congratulate you—I have rarely seen such serious, rigorous, fair, and important work for French football as what you have done. So beyond the two recommendations you mention, from my point of view, I support the entirety of your recommendations. Regarding the call for tenders, it is ironic because I was once before the Competition Council—it wasn't even called the Authority—and I was told that Canal+ was a disaster because we held 100% of Ligue 1, and it was absolutely necessary... And I tried to defend that it was actually the best way to guarantee the lowest price. Well, the problem is that if you remove all the locks, you risk ending up with a Chinese operator, as we saw with Mediapro, which took 100% of Ligue 1, and then we have another issue. So I think we need to be careful about that. What we advocated was that a significant share of the rights should not be accessible to an extra-European operator, and that a significant share of the rights should be allocated to actors—we made a distinction between extra-European and intra-European, beyond the specific case of Canal+.
Canal+, thank you. I will now take all the questions, starting with Sylvie Robert.
Yes, thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. President, for both your opening remarks and the remarks you have just made. I had a question about what is being played out, I might say, the battle around the media chronology. Because effectively, the platforms Disney+ and, by domino effect, Netflix are pushing their pawn to advance in the media chronology. I understand that. I had a question, but you have answered it: you would be ready to halve your investment, that is, to go from 200 million euros to 100 million euros if the organization of the different platforms is not to your liking. That is to say, following the amount that was... But I think we are in a battle, you are also playing this power game during this hearing. So I hope, in any case, I tell you very clearly, that this project for a renewed agreement with the cinema organizations for 5 years for an amount of 1 billion euros will still be current tomorrow. Second question, so I will elaborate a bit more. You said very clearly, and you spoke about your investment in MultiChoice. In parallel at the national level, you have accelerated content aggregation with partnerships with Apple, Paramount. So there is a double movement, which is combined, moreover, with your partial exit from DTT, which may raise questions about the change of model. You have spoken about it a little, but I will go further: are you in the process of operating your objective, since you talk about long-term strategy—and we hear it, it is an industrial strategy, so we can certainly understand it—is it to switch to the platform model like Netflix or Amazon? Do you want to definitively abandon television? How will you resist in this battle of giants, because they benefit from colossal means, as you yourself said. So I take your words, and as a corollary, the subscription price is still quite substantially high for Canal+, especially compared to other platforms today, since they have offered ad-supported offers. If you become a platform, will you implement this type of subscription? What, ultimately, in terms of prospects, since there is profitability at the end, is your strategy in this area? And is this shift planned or is it still under consideration, following all the different issues you have mentioned? Thank you.
Sonia de la Provuté... ah, sorry for the personal contingency. Well, if I were you, I wouldn't add any more because you have already made a very, very, very long question. So I just allow myself to ask you a rather particular question. You have gone public, it was in England, and in fact there is a subject regarding the Francophonie. You said that henceforth the English language will take on more importance in the offerings of Canal+ and the group. And that, in parallel with the growing role of artificial intelligence, which we know is particularly driven by the Anglo-Saxon world and singularly the United States. In fact, the question is: will Canal+ keep its French soul, including in its strategic choices, its editorial choices, or will the weight of the 'ready-to-think' that is imposing itself a bit everywhere in the world, and which is singularly Anglo-Saxon with this particular way of doing television—will you have both vigilance, alerts, a will to keep Canal+'s soul and singularity and its offering?
