Canal Plus is preparing to cut 500 jobs in France, equivalent to 18% of its employees in the country.
First reported by Les Jours, the move by the Vivendi unit is seen as a response to increasing competition from streamers such as Netflix and the Qatar-owned beIN Sports that has eroded Canal’s one-time dominance of pay-TV sports.
The company has about 2,600 employees in France. Union leaders have received an invitation next Tuesday that will discuss voluntary redundancies.
Last year Canal was left without any rights of its own to the French football league when it was beaten by Spain’s Mediapro. The auction for the rights reached €1.153 billion, which was almost 60% more than that for the previous contract.
Canal currently has 4.6 million subscribers in the French market, compared to the 5 million subscribers accrued by Netflix in just 5 years.
The head of Canal Plus’s corporate board has confirmed the pay-TV channel will shut down SVOD platform CanalPlay.
Despite growth internationally – in May Canal announced the acquisition of pan-European operator M7 – its domestic subscriber base continues to fall.
