French Antitrust Authorities Reject Vivendi Deal With Qatari Sports Channel Provider
June 09 2016 - 10:20AM
Dow Jones News
The French antitrust watchdog has rejected an alliance between
Vivendi' SA's pay-TV Canal Plus and Qatar-controlled beIN Sports,
dealing a major blow to the French media company.
Thursday's verdict is a setback for Vivendi, which has described
the deal as an essential part of its strategy to stem losses at its
struggling French pay TV channels which have been losing money for
the last four years.
"This project to ally, of which we don't know everything,
contained a risk of collusion in sports rights, as the two actors
would have held 80% of sports right, and the football league was
worried," antitrust chief Bruno Lasserre said.
The deal involved Canal Plus paying to distribute channels from
the Qatari group exclusively for a number of years.
BeIN Sports entered the French market in 2012, spending millions
of euros scooping up live sports rights including the UEFA
Champions League and French Ligue 1 soccer games and quickly
becoming a formidable competitor to Canal Plus.
Although the channel now counts more than 2.5 million
subscribers in France, turning a profit has proved more difficult.
Analysts at Natixis estimate the channel is losing between €250
million ($282 million) and €300 million a year, partly because it
charges subscribers just €13 a month for expensively acquired
sports content.
For Vivendi, a lot is at stake in returning Canal Plus to
financial health. The pay-TV group is currently Vivendi's largest
business, accounting for more than half of its sales, and is a key
cornerstone of the group's plans to build a media empire focused on
southern Europe.
"An agreement couldn't be found for concessions that would have
limited competition risks," Mr. Lasserre said. "We preferred to say
no."
A spokesman for Vivendi couldn't immediately be reached for
comment.
Write to Nick Kostov at Nick.Kostov@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 09, 2016 11:05 ET (15:05 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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