France’s windowing wars pitting the US streamers against local broadcasters stepped up a gear on Wednesday (Sept 28) when the heads of France’s free-to-air networks called for action in a biting letter to Le Monde, prompted in part by Disney’s threat to pull the theatrical release of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in France in November and send it straight to Disney+.
France Televisions’ Delphine Ernotte, TF1’s Gilles Pelisson and M6’s Nicolas de Tavernost warned against the “interpretative diktat” of international platforms and called for the industry – particularly movie theatres – to come together to keep the long-held windows system that underpins the French funding tradition in place.
“Free TV channels have always supported French cinema, its distribution and its diversity,” said the letter, citing the €144m total investment the three made in 126 films in 2021 “which would otherwise not have been made”.
The trio believe the new agreement on media chronology signed in early 2022, in addition to advancing the window of local pay-TV group Canal+, “has favoured the American pay platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney + by placing them ahead of free TV”. They claim this is unfair given the “very modest” contribution of the platforms which they describe as “about €50m per year, or less than half of that of free TV”.
The agreement signed in January of this year followed Netflix’s pledge to invest €45m to local production in exchange for a shorter release window of 15 months rather than the previously long-held 36-month window.
Disney and Amazon did not sign the agreement and made no commitment to invest in local production but their window was still fixed at 17 months. French pay-tv group Canal Plus had already reached an accord with film industry organisations whereby it agreed to invest more than €600m in local and European film production over the next three years and advanced its window to just six months.
TF1, France Televisions and M6 have to wait 22 months before airing on their respective networks and 36 months on their SVoD services.
‘Black Panther’ threat
The letter lambasts Disney’s threat to pull the anticipated theatrical release on November 9 of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, following the US studio’s decision to move animated Christmas film Strange World straight to streaming. According to Ernotte, Pélisson and de Tavernost, through this move Disney is attempting to change the long-dated French media chronology system “as it sees fit in order to eliminate the exclusivity of free TV and thus reinforce its strategy of exclusivity for its own subscription service.” They describe Disney’s actions as “blackmail”.
The letter also directs some of its ire towards Netflix, saying the US platform “took advantage of this American wind of protest” (namely, Disney’s latest threats to pull its films from theatres) and accused the streamer of signing the original agreement, then going on to side with their fellow US streamers with no Netflix films opening exclusively in French cinemas.
The free broadcasters called this an unsurprising move for such “a text whose ink is barely dry,” but added that “the blackmail is already working” citing the fact the cinema owners are already beginning to see the repercussions of major US studios forgoing local theatrical releases for straight to SVoD streaming. The blow comes as France’s theatres continue to struggle to catch up in the wake of the pandemic. From January through the end of August, the CNC reported 97.6 million admissions, down 30% from the same period in 2019 and down 28.7% from the 2017-2019 average.
Friend or foe?
The arrival of the US streamers in France has boosted budgets and content production in the country but has also been seen as a threat to the long dated French system of film and audiovisual funding that is based on such a theatrical windowing system.
In their letter, Ernotte, Pélisson and de Tavernost outlined the structure in detail: “The vitality of French cinema is the result of the collective ambition of French free and pay television channels and of the major players in the film industry (cinemas, producers, distributors), supported by the public authorities for more than 50 years to preserve the French cultural exception.” For them, “The principle is simple: in return for its investment and the respect of various obligations, each operator has the right to exploit for a predefined period of time, on an exclusive basis and without competition, the film it has financed or acquired.”
The victims in the ongoing conflict are French cinemas which have suffered not only in the wake of the global pandemic but continue to be the collateral victims of the window wars. Ernotte, Pélisson and de Tavernost argue these theatres need international films to maintain their business as do their own channels in order to “finance cinema and expose it to the greatest number of people possible without any constraint of purchasing power.”
The trio defended France’s famous “cultural exception”, namely the conviction that culture isn’t simply a commodity that can be subject to the pressure of the marketplace and free trade. They stressed the importance of supporting French and European creation and questioned who would be the eventual losers in the brewing multi-party battle: “The movie theatre operators in our territories? The national broadcasters? Or the powerful American studios?” Their answer: “It is obviously the French and European industry that must be supported and it would be incomprehensible for American companies to be crowned victorious from public authorities, a fortiori by blackmail,” a strong message sent to the government.
The letter urges the national film centre, the CNC, to thus ensure their free-TV window remains watertight. “Free channels are the only ones to offer audiences films free of charge: do we really want access to cinema in France to be reserved only for pay services?”
The CNC will now host a meeting on the theatrical window between Disney, the French government and the platforms and networks concerned on October 4.
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