Canal+, Vivendi’s pay TV company, asked the government to persuade TF1 to allow it to broadcast its channel for free, just two days after halting the airing of TF1 channels because the price the group demanded was too high.
Canal+ Chairman Maxime Saada told the weekly Journal du Dimanche that TF1 had requested a 50% increase in its contract with Canal+, which expired on August 31, which was unacceptable.
“DTT (Digital Terrestrial Television) channels, such as those of the TF1 group, are and must remain free for the general public,” he said.
On Saturday, the French daily Le Parisien reported that it had seen a letter from Culture Minister Rima Abdul-Malak, in which she urged Canal+ management to “show its sense of responsibility and general interest to avoid depriving hundreds of thousands of households of receiving all DTT channels.”
Although the negotiations with TF1, a subsidiary of the Bouygues group, were private matters between the companies, Saada stated that the government had the authority to intervene.
“Public authorities could demand that TF1 honor its obligation to make its signal available free of charge, as we are doing,” he added.
In the spring of 2018, the two groups had already clashed on this issue. Canal+ had temporarily ceased broadcasting TF1 Group’s free channels for its subscribers after refusing to pay to broadcast channels that were otherwise free via DTT.
Only after the intervention of the CSA, the audiovisual regulatory authority, and the minister of culture at the time, was the signal restored.
(This story refiles to correct to CSA not CASA in final paragraph)
