According to our colleagues from the Variety site, the Canal+ group has just entered into exclusive negotiations to buy OCS as well as Orange’s cinema activities, such as Orange Studio. The employees have already been informed of the buy-back procedure.
As we know, for several years now, Canal+ has been looking for a way to strengthen its position in the pay-TV and streaming market against the big names in the genre, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and even Disney+.
Since July 2022, we know in particular that the Canal+ group has been in discussions with Orange to acquire the cinema, television and premium television divisions of the operator. This includes in particular Orange Studioa renowned production and distribution company, but also the OCS service. It must be said that since January 2022, the operator has been trying to get rid of OCS and sell its shares in the streaming platform.
However, the encrypted string, which already owns 33.3% of OCS, had a right of first refusal on the acquisition and intended to assert it. According to our colleagues on the site varietyalready at the origin of the first revelations on this file, thehe Canal+ group has entered the final phase of negotiations with Orange to acquire Orange Studio and OCS.
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Canal+ in the home stretch to buy OCS and Orange Studio
OCS employees have already been informed that an agreement was being negotiated, exclusively with Canal+. Of course, the agreement will first have to pass through the hands of the competition authority. In 2011, note that the group belonging to Vivendi had already tried to buy OCS, in vain. At the time, the competition authority had vetoed it, fearing that this takeover would allow Canal to be in a position of strength.
But since then, water has flowed under the bridge, and above all we have seen the emergence of streaming heavyweights like Netflix and its 13 million subscribers in France. According to Variety, Canal+ would have undertaken to maintain the workforce of the company. Despite everything, the current leaders of OCS and Orange Studio have expressed their concern about suffering the same fate as TPS, a TV group bought in 2007 by Canal+ and which went bankrupt 5 years later.
It should however be remembered that Canal+ wishes to seize a service, in this case OCS, in gloomy financial health. In effect, OCS presents losses between 400 and 500 million euros since its launch in 2008. Orange had also demanded debt absorption of up to 150 million during previous negotiations. In addition, OCS will lose its exclusive distribution agreement for HBO programs from January 2023. Indeed, the series and films of the American channel will join the catalog of the future streaming service launched by Warner Bros. Discovery.
