Maxime Saada, chair of the Canal+ board, has announced that the company’s Canalplay SVoD platform will shut down in a matter of weeks, according to Advanced Television. Speaking before the French Senate’s Commission of Culture and Communication, Saada said:
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It’s over for Canalplay. In the last two years, we have been taken off the map in this market which is surplanting television. We had a French Netflix, it was killed. We were deprived the possibility of exclusives for Canalplay when Netflix stepped into the market.
We [are bound by] a ball and chain when competing with hegemonic US players such as Netflix, which is recruiting 100,000 subscribers each month in France and investing billion of dollars into content”.
Advanced Television reports that Canalplay’s subscriber count has dropped from 800,000 to 200,000. Saada appealed to the commission for fairer rules, particularly around rights ownership for television content, and highlighted the need to tackle piracy more effectively.
