The French industry is abuzz with the suggestion the country’s strict windowing rules may be able to undergo another major shift.
Moves at the end of 2024 from pay-TV giant Canal+ and Disney suggest France’s windowing rules – and consequently its entire film industry ecosystem – could be headed for a major shake-up in 2025.
On December 16, Canal+ spun off from French owner Vivendi to go public on the London Stock Exchange. The move solidified the group as a global media company with a presence in more than 50 countries, with around 60% of its nearly 27 million subscribers now based outside of France.
Canal +, the parent company of UK-based production outfit Studiocanal, chose London to signal its renewed focus on English-speaking markets. (It also recently acquired African pay-TV company MultiChoice to add to its international subsidiaries, which also include Viaplay in Scandinavia and Viu in southeast Asia.)
The move has provided fuel to fiery rumours the French giant will launch its own content platform to rival the US streamers, after it pulled its four pay-TV channels (Canal+, Canal+ Cinéma, Canal+ Sport, and Planète+) from the country’s direct-to-terrestrial platform in early December.
In November, Disney confirmed it was ending its exclusive distribution deal with Canal+ at the end of the year to transition the content to its standalone Disney+ platform.
Many in the French industry believe this could be part of an attempt by Disney to challenge Canal+ on its home turf by significantly increasing its funding for French cinema in exchange for a shorter window between theatrical releases and launches on Disney+.
It is understood Disney could be willing to spend some €55m a year – up from €13m in 2024 – if the terms of the chronology tipped in its favour.
Windows
France officially reset its strict media chronology in February 2022 in a landmark three-year agreement whereby streaming platforms including Disney+ have to wait 17 months after theatrical release to show feature films on their platforms, and 15 months for Netflix, the only US streamer to sign the initial accord.
Canal+ has a six-month window in exchange for more investment in local production, currently some €230m per year since its takeover of Orange Studio and OCS.
The company remains the biggest backer of French films and any major changes in its status or financing model would impact the country’s entire entertainment ecosystem. Meanwhile, Disney’s push to up its investment in the territory could also turn the system on its head as the deadline for the media chronology deal approaches.
Negotiations
Closed-door negotiations are now underway ahead of February’s renewal date. The situation is complex – due to France’s feature film financing system, the streamers are simultaneously in competition with each other and with French broadcasters, but they are also all production and distribution partners. Netflix, for example, pre-bought second-window TV rights to Studiocanal’s Beating Hearts which went on to become the distributor’s biggest film at the French box office to date, and is in the top three French titles of 2024.
Should Canal+ take on streamer status following the removal of its free-to-air channels, it would be subject to the same 20% investment obligations of the European Union’s Audio-visual Media Service Directive (AVMSD) that requires the streamers to invest at least 20% of their annual local turnover in French film and TV production.
For now, Canal+ continues to leverage its unique position as both a super-aggregator of content and a producer in its own right. It is losing Disney and its free-to-air networks in France, but still has streaming partnerships with Netflix, Apple TV+, Max and Paramount+, plus basic pay-TV channels and premium in-house channels including cinema-focused channels that take advantage of its six-month window to offer both blockbusters and arthouse fare before competitors.
In February 2023, Canal+ chairman and CEO Maxime Saada pledged to invest €1bn in cinema over five years. Ahead of the launch on the London Stock Exchange, Saada told Le Figaro he hoped to see the group’s subscriber base grow to 50 to 100 million. He addressed local industry concerns that the group’s removal of its DTT channels means “the end of our financing [for film]”.
“Our withdrawal simply makes us more agile,” he said. “Does Canal+ want to significantly reduce its obligations? Not necessarily. Does it want to have the capacity to do so? Certainly. We didn’t need to invest more than €200 million a year. But we wanted to.”
Saada emphasised the group “wishes to remain the main partner of French cinema. If, however, we feel that the conditions are no longer ripe for this, we will adjust our positioning, as we always do.”
The wild card in the windows equation is Netflix, the only group to have signed the original agreement and the streamer that invests the most (generally through second-window pre-buys) in French production. Should Disney increase its own investment and receive a shorter window, Netflix will have to decide whether to embrace the competition and seek to challenge Canal+ and Disney with more sizeable investments in local cinema in order to shorten its own window or, instead, say au revoir to France to focus on other territories with less constraints.
Amazon may also be faced with a similar decision.
However, an increase in investment from Disney or other streamers does not guarantee French authorities will accept a dramatic change to the chronology. Another dramatic overhaul of the system in favour of such global platforms is likely to meet pushback from France’s powerful theatrical distribution sector. French exhibitors have long argued the longer windows are key to maintaining the country’s strong theatrical box office that, in turn, is invested into production.
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