The Wall Street Journal described Canal+ as "the French film industry's biggest financial backer, beloved by French cineastes".[3]
It is a major source of finance for domestic film production, participating in the financing of the vast majority of films produced in France. It also has its own subsidiary companies with direct involvement in film production.[4]
StudioCanal, one of those subsidiaries, announced in 2011 that it would now spend €200 million a year on movie production, establishing its position as "the first port of call outside the U.S. for intelligent upmarket movies" such as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy which is fully financed by the studio.[5]
Corporate divisions
Canal+ – premium TV channel (Metropolitan France, Caribbean, Africa)
Canal+ has operations in France, Poland, Vietnam and Myanmar, Rwanda[6] and other world nations not yet listed through its flagship brand
Canal+. It is encrypted for most of the day, and viewers who wish to watch the channel's more popular programming (new-release movies and live sport) must subscribe to the service. Previously this involved the purchase of a decoder to decrypt the signal, but increasingly Canal+ is being offered as part of a multi-channel satellite or cable television package (known as CanalSat in France.).
Former operations
Canal Plus was the first cable TV channel to operate in
Brazil, in 1989. It operated on the
MMDS system and broadcast part of
ESPN programming. Its Brazilian operations were sold to
Grupo Abril in 1991.[7][8]
Canal+ has previously also been present in several other European countries such as Spain, Italy (as Tele+) and the Netherlands as early as 1990, but as of 2016 it is only active in Poland and France, due to many of these divisions being sold to other companies such as
Sky Europe and
Movistar.[citation needed] Canal+ would begin returning to European markets outside of France and Poland in 2022, as a streaming service, in countries such as Austria, Czechia and Slovakia.
Canal Plus came to the Nordic countries in 1997, acquiring the two
FilmNet-channels and renaming them. The Nordic part was sold in October 2003 to the
Telenor-owned
Canal Digital, and the Canal+ brand was used under license until 2012, when the channels were re-branded
C More Entertainment.
Canal+ Hi-Tech was a private
television channel in France dedicated to the broadcasting of films in
16:9aspect ratio and
HDTV. Canal+ 16/9 changed its name to Canal+ Hi-Tech in March 2005. Through this change, the channel offered the latest technological advances in terms of image and sound, especially with high-definition programs. The channel was deleted when switching
Canal+ to the
16:9 format.[citation needed]
Canal+ 3D was born on June 10, 2010, to broadcast some matches of the
2010 FIFA World Cup in
3D. It regularly broadcast films or sporting events of
Canal+ in
stereoscopic 3D format.[citation needed] It stopped broadcasting on January 24, 2012.[9]
StudioCanal is a production company formed in 1988, associated with
NBCUniversal until 2011.[10] Nowadays, StudioCanal is operating in several countries such as Germany, Japan, or Australia.[11] For the movie industry, it is a major player at the European level.[12]
Formerly Canal Satellite Numérique, a pay
satellite and
IPTV distributor (as CanalSAT DSL). Canal+ is a satellite TV package launched in 1992 as an extension to the original Canal+ analogue channel.[13] A merger between CanalSat and its main competitor
TPS started in 2007, and finally canceled by the Competition Authority in 2011.[14] With Canal+, the utilization of the card pairing (QEV) technology allowed access to many channels such as,
Eurosport,
Paris Premiere or
LCI.[15]
This pay TV platform also served as the basis for many of its international equivalents, including in Spain (Canal Satélite Digital), Italy (Tele+ Digitale) and Poland (Cyfra+), mainly during the late 1990s and early 2000s, with these versions sharing similar decoding technology and set-top boxes.
Thema is a Canal+ Group company that oversees distribution of
Pay TV services in various countries, and is the parent company of channels including
Novelas TV and
Nollywood TV. Thema was founded in 2005 by François Thiellet, and acquired by Canal+ in 2014.[18]
International versions
As Canal+ was launched in new markets the brand has been used in several countries. When launching additional channels the channels were usually given colour-coded names, such as Canal+ Blue, Canal+ Green, Canal+ Yellow and Canal+ Red. Many of these subsidiaries have been sold and as of 2016, only the Polish Canal+ is partially owned by French Canal+.
Canal+ Spain, later known as
#0. Launched in 1990 in Spain by
Sogecable as an analogue pay channel, similar to the French and Polish version. In 2015 the largest Spanish telecommunications company
Telefónica received the approval and closed the acquisition of Canal+ Spain alongside its
satellite TV platform, now renamed
Movistar Plus+.
Canal+ Belgium, now known as
BeTV. It shares many common programs with the French channels. It is owned by
VOO, a public
telco in
Wallonia.
Canal+ Netherlands,
FilmNet was rebranded as Canal+ in 1997.[19] Canal+ sold the channels later on. In 2005, the channels were bought by
Liberty Global and renamed them to
Sport1 and
Film1 in February 2006.[20] Sport1 changed its name to
Ziggo Sport Totaal in November 2015,[21] Film1 was sold to
Sony Pictures Television in the same year.[22] On 1 May 2019, Sony announced that Film1 would close on 1 August 2019.[23][24] However it was sold to
SPI International instead,[25] which was fully acquired by Canal+ in August 2023. Canal+ will be reintroduced in Netherlands as a streaming service, on January 29, 2024.[26]
Canal+ Scandinavia, launched as Canal+ in 1997 with the integration of the
FilmNet channels. The company was sold and renamed
C More Entertainment, although the brand Canal+ was still used. It was purchased by the
SBS Broadcasting Group in 2005, which was merged with
ProSiebenSat.1 Media in 2007. In 2008, an agreement was made to sell the channels to
TV4 Group. Since 2012 it is called C More.
Premiere, a German premium television channel and platform launched in 1990, was founded by Canal+,
Bertelsmann and
Kirch. A few years later, Canal+ sold its share of Premiere. It is now known as
Sky Deutschland and is owned by the UK's
Sky plc.
Canal+ Brazil, a Brazilian version created in 1989, not the own version, retransmission of American
ESPN. Ended transmissions due to launch of the Brazil cable providers in 1991.[7][8]
In May 2009,
K+ founded by Canal+ and
VTV was launched. K+ brings national level satellite TV service and OTT service to Vietnamese households, offering five premium and exclusive channels,[27] up to 170 SD channels and HD channels across genres: sports, movies, general entertainment, news, music, and documentaries.[28]
Canal+ Afrique, launched as Canal Horizons in 1990, is the channel in Africa.
Canal+ Myanmar, originally launched by
Forever Group as 4TV in 2006, it became a joint venture with Canal+ Group in 2017, and was rebranded as Canal+ in February 2018.
^
abLarangeira, Álvaro Nunes; Musse, Christina Ferraz; Thomé, Cláudia de Albuquerque; Tavares, Denise; Silva, Juremir Machado da; Ribeiro, Renata Rezende (1 April 2021).
1969 a 1970: Janelas do Tempo (in Brazilian Portuguese). Editora Sulina.
ISBN978-65-5759-023-2.
^"Vivendi: strong earnings growth in 2019". www.vivendi.com. 2020-02-13. Retrieved 2022-03-01. Constant perimeter notably reflects the impacts of the acquisition of M7 by Canal+ Group (September 12, 2019), the acquisition of the remaining interest in Ingrooves Music Group, which has been consolidated by Universal Music Group (March 15, 2019), the acquisition of Editis (January 31, 2019), the acquisition of Paylogic by Vivendi Village (April 16, 2018) and the sale of MyBestPro by Vivendi Village (December 21, 2018).