The Canal+ group will withdraw its four pay-TV channels from DTT: Canal+, Canal+ Cinéma, Canal+ Sport and Planète+.
The French broadcaster announced the withdrawal will take effect in June 2025. This will affect a total of 70,000 subscribers, or 1% of the group’s total customer base in France.
This decision comes four days before a general meeting that will be decisive for the proposed demerger of the Vivendi group into four independent entities, including Canal+. If the shareholders give the go-ahead on 9 December, Canal+ will be listed on the London Stock Exchange from 16 December.
It also follows the non-renewal of C8’s authorisation on DTT in 2025. “Drawing on the consequences of Arcom’s withdrawal of C8, the leading DTT channel, and an increasingly restrictive tax and regulatory environment for the group in France, Canal+ is announcing the withdrawal of its pay-TV channels from DTT,” said the press release.
But Arcom’s decision is not the only reason for Canal’s withdrawal from pay DTT. Canal+, which had already threatened to leave DTT on several occasions, added that it was “constantly subjected to tax and regulatory decisions that penalise its operations in France: an increase in the tax it pays to the CNC, threats to its VAT rate, which is directly linked to its status as the leading funder of French cinema, and finally the decision to withdraw from C8, the leading DTT channel. This decision, as the Canal+ group has repeatedly pointed out during its public hearings, has profoundly unbalanced the business of its pay-TV channels on DTT.”
The VAT rate on some of Canal+’s offerings rose from 10% (applicable to linear TV) to 20% (applicable to online video services) in 2022, resulting in an estimated additional cost of more than €200 million. The Group challenged the move to 20% VAT before the French Conseil d’Etat, but its case was dismissed last July.
In the VAT dispute, the tax authorities are proposing “adjustments totalling €655 million” to the Vivendi subsidiary, according to L’Informé. In addition, in September the Paris Administrative Court rejected the petitions filed by Canal+ from November 2021, seeking the reimbursement of a total of €87.3m paid to the CNC for 2017, 2018 and 2019 in respect of taxes on television services owed by publishers and distributors (as reported in Satellifacts, 26 September).
The group will retain two free-to-air channels on DTT following the announced demise of C8 on 28 February: the news channel CNews and CStar, a music and magazine channel.
The removal of DTT distribution for its pay channels is remarkable, as Canal+ was originally launched as a pay channel solely distributed via analogue terrestrial distribution.
