20
Annual Report -
2013
-
Vivendi
Group Profile |
Businesses
| Litigation | Risk Factors
1
Canal+ Group
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2.1.9.3. Partnership in Poland
The Canal+, ITI and TVN Groups entered into a strategic partnership
agreement to combine their pay-TV channel packages in Poland and
Canal+ Group acquired a significant interest in the capital of TVN.
On September 14, 2012, this partnership was unconditionally approved
by the Polish Competition Authority and on November 30, 2012 by the
European Commission.
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2.1.9.4. Competitive environment in France
The French pay-TV market is changing rapidly due to the following:
new players entering the market and offering premium content,
including Orange, which has positioned itself in the upstream
market for the acquisition of audiovisual rights and in the
intermediate market comprising the production and distribution of
movie and drama channels (“OCS” channels); and Al Jazeera, which
has substantial financial backing and recently launched the BeIN
Sport Channels, allowing it to offer a significant quantity of premium
sports content;
the proliferation of distribution platforms and technologies;
the development and enrichment of deals offered by ISPs;
new non-linear services (including a number of global scale),
offering quality and premium content in VoD and SVoD.
They represent, for ISPs in particular, real growth areas insofar as
they allow providers to rapidly build pay-TV offerings without the
editorial or regulatory constraints resulting from the production of
a television service;
growing consumer appetite for these services. This encourages ISPs
to enter into this market, often global in reach and currently very
active in the audiovisual creation economy. There is a fear that this
distortion of competition will intensify as the growth of connected
television facilitates even greater access to delinearized services;
the competitive pressure exerted by the cable operator Numericable,
which also remains strong due to the development of fiber optic
networks. Very high-speed Internet, which strengthens capacity in
video and data flows, allows Numericable to improve its offering,
in terms of both quantity (more channels) and quality (including
additional HD channels, new VoD services, new interactive
opportunities and opportunities for recommendations). It is also
investing resources to acquire the rights to produce and broadcast
sports-themed channels; and
the undeniable and growing success of DVB in France, helping drive
radical change in the audiovisual landscape. It has significantly
opened the market to brand-new competition from the producers
of free television.
2.1.10.
Research and Development
Canal+ Group research and development (R&D) policy primarily focuses
on innovations in new services, new uses and new technologies.
The advancement of an idea or concept from the monitoring phase into
the prototyping phase, then on to its roll-out, is determined by a cross-
disciplinary committee consisting of the various operations managers
(Distribution, Programming, Technology and Information Systems).
A number of the projects carried out within this framework receive
research tax credits.
