Vivendi in Talks With BeIN Over Its French Channels
January 28 2016 - 4:20PM
Dow Jones News
PARIS—French company Vivendi SA is in talks with beIN Media
Group that could lead to the purchase of the Qatari-owned company's
channels in France, according to people familiar with the
matter.
The companies are discussing a range of options from a full
acquisition to an exclusive distribution deal, the people said,
cautioning that no agreement was certain.
"We've been competing for years, so the companies know each
other perfectly," one of the people said, adding that a deal could
be announced in February or early March.
A deal between Vivendi and beIN Sports France would be the
latest shake-up over what Cable and satellite-TV providers have
complained about for years: the rising cost of sports
programming.
BeIN Sports entered the French market in 2012, quickly becoming
a formidable competitor to Vivendi's pay-TV unit, Canal Plus. It
has spent millions of euros scooping up live sports rights,
including UEFA Champions League and French Ligue 1 soccer
games.
The channel now counts more than 2.5 million subscribers in
France. But turning a profit has proved more difficult. Analysts at
Natixis estimate the channel is losing between €250 million and
€300 million ($270 million and $326 million) a year given it
charges subscribers just €13 a month for expensively acquired
sports content. The price of beIN Sports France isn't known, but
Natixis estimates it at around €500 million.
The battle for sports rights has intensified as big broadcasters
try to lure customers, draw advertising revenue and protect other
parts of their territory such as broadband packages.
In November, French telecom and media tycoon Patrick Drahi's
Altice NV brought the exclusive rights to English Premier League
soccer in France, depriving Canal Plus of one of its most lucrative
assets. Analysts have said that the loss of the Premier League
rights could lead to hundreds of thousands of subscribers leaving
Canal Plus.
U.S. rival Discovery Communications Inc. is also bidding
aggressively for sports rights in Europe through its purchase of
Eurosport.
The talks come as Al Jazeera, of which beIN Media Group is an
affiliate, is preparing significant cuts at some of its channels
in reaction to economic problems caused by the oil price plunge.
This month, Al Jazeera said it would shut its U.S. cable channel
by April 30.
For Vivendi, a deal with beIN Sports would replenish Canal
Plus's shrinking library of sports rights, helping to lock in fans
on its platform and stem customer losses. BeIN Sports said this
month it had secured the rights in France to the 2018 and 2022
World Cups.
Any deal would likely face tough antitrust scrutiny given Canal
Plus's dominant position in sports broadcasting in France, a person
familiar with the talks said.
Write to Nick Kostov at Nick.Kostov@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 28, 2016 16:05 ET (21:05 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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