The Canal Overseas division of the Canal+ Group will launch a bouquet of channels on Arabsat to serve the so-called Maghreb region, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. The new platform will make its debut on the BADR-6 satellite.
The offer will consist of over 25 channels, including the premium Canal+ L’essentiel (a special version of Canal+ for the North African region), Canal+ Cinema and Canal+ Family, the movie channels CineCinema Frisson and CineCinema Star, the public channels France 2, France 3, France 5 and TV Breizh.
The thematic channels include MTV, NRJ Hits, Trace, M6 Music Club, Game One, Planete, Planete Thalassa, Ushuaia TV, Histoire, Piwi, Teletoon, Cuisine TV LCI, i-Télé, and the sports OMTV, OLTV, Girondins TV and Infosport.
The bouquet is the first legally available DTH bouquet for the region – supposedly many people subscribe to the French national CanalSat bouquet, using overspill of the satellite signal. The CA system used will be Viaccess PC 4.0. Canal Overseas claims the potential audiences is 13 million viewers, of which 10 million are already enjoying satellite reception.