NEW AUDIENCES "NEEDED" everywhere!!! Canal+ face
Post# of 96879
Canal+ faces €300m cost cuts, international subs surpass domestic
French pay TV operator Canal+ continued to lose domestic subscribers during the first half, with the total number of services sold declining by 272,000 to 8.187 million in June. The Vivendi-owned pay TV operator is to implement a programme of cost cutting in a bid to stem its losses.
Canal+ revenues for the first half of the year dropped by 3.5% to €2.639 billion. Operating income was €297 million, down from €368 million for the first half of last year, while EBITA fell from €388 million to €297 million.
Parent company Vivendi attributed the decline to the problems faced by the domestic French pay TV unit and to lower profitability at production outfit Studiocanal and the group’s free-to-air channels.
Canal+ is in the process of implementing a €300 million cost savings plan, cutting €100 million in costs associated with marketing, set-top management and other subscription-related costs as well as cutting €150 million from its programming budget. It said that about €60 million to €80 million in savings were expected to be realized this year.
Speaking on an analyst call following Vivendi’s results, CEO Arnaud de Puyfontaine said that the transformation plan had a “clear ambition to restore value proposition by clarifying our TV offer between pay and free TV” and that it was “totally right on track”.