The future of the paid demand video platform, launched in 2020, had been compromised for months and the failure at the end of September of the merger between TF1 and M6, to which France Télévisions had to resell its share to complete its budget.
mo12345lemonde with AFP
His future was just holding a thread that has just broken. After weeks of agony, the video platform on a paid demand, supposed to be a “French Netflix”, saw its judgment formalized on Wednesday February 15 by the France Télévisions, M6 and TF1 groups, which held in equal parts.
“The France Télévisions, M6 and TF1 groups announce their decision to stop the Salto platform,” they said in a statement. The legal representative responsible for his liquidation will specify “in short time the schedule of judgment of the platform and subscriptions”.
Launched in October 2020, the platform announced on Monday on its home page that it no longer took new subscribers, a sign of its imminent disappearance. “Specific communication will soon be sent to Salto subscribers to inform them of the consequences on their current subscription,” continued the public group and the two private groups. According to them, Salto “brings together to date nearly a million subscribers”.
This judgment is not a surprise: the future of the platform had been compromised for months and the failure at the end of September of the merger between TF1 and M6, to which France Télévisions had to resell its share to complete its budget . “This project, the Salto shareholders judged that the conditions were not met for the continuation of Salto in its current shareholding,” said France Télévisions, M6 and TF1.
refusal of distribution
They point out “the complex and constrained governance of this alliance and (the) refusal of most operators providing internet access to distribute the platform like the American platforms”. “Furthermore, the brands of interest received from several actors for the resumption of Salto could not lead to a concretization,” they assure. “The France Télévisions, M6 and TF1 groups are committed to making their best efforts to provide new opportunities to Salto employees” after their collective economic dismissal, they continue. Salto used mid-January forty-two people on permanent contracts and eight on fixed-term contracts. The subscription cost 7.99 euros per month (or 5.80 euros monthly for a subscription taken over a year).
By publishing their annual results Monday and Tuesday, M6 and TF1 had indicated that Salto had cost them some 46 million euros each (including the provisions of liquidation charges).
Beyond the failure of the TF1/M6 merger, Salto has suffered from a confused strategy and multiple obstacles, in a market dominated by American giants like Netflix, Disney+ or Amazon Prime Video. On the catalog side, the platform supposed to promote the “influence of French and European audiovisual creation” was distinguished by some pretty exclusives coming straight … from America, with in particular the program “Friends, reunion” or the suite of Sex and the City.
Launch pushed
She also offered a lot of reruns or previews of programs produced by its shareholders, such as the daily soap operas of TF1 (here it all starts, Tomorrow belongs to us) and France 2 (a great sun).
But TF1, M6 and France Télévisions have at the same time developed their own online platforms, which competed in Salto by offering some of its programs for free and by offering more and more online previews. Similarly, TF1 and M6 each launched a streaming service on paid subscription without advertising, for 2.99 euros per month per first year, then 3.99 euros per month, cheaper than salto.
The latter also suffered from a delay in ignition: when it had been announced in 2018, it took more than a year for this unprecedented project to bring together private channels and public service receive fire Green of the Competition Authority, the file having passed in the hands of the European authorities. The launch, scheduled for the first quarter of 2020, had been postponed in the fall, so after the rise of Netflix and the arrival of Disney+ during containment.
Finally, Salto could hardly compete in terms of funding, with 135 million euros invested by its shareholders, far from billions spent by Netflix and others.