Last Monday, to everyone's surprise, Canal + decided to make its programs available for free during the confinement period. An initiative welcomed by the public but which was felt as a coup by other TV channels and by the societies of authors. If TF1 and M6 did not want to speak publicly to avoid being accused of bad players, they expressed their great annoyance to the CSA. According to them, by becoming a free channel, Canal + distorts the rules of competition, by encroaching on their audiences at a particularly difficult time for all the media. In addition, it distorts the media chronology. Indeed, the films that Canal + currently broadcasts are destined to end up on the antennas of free-to-air channels a year later. If these films are encrypted, it does not matter. If they pass in the clear, they will reach the general public who had to wait for a broadcast on TF1 or M6 to see them.
For its part, the authors' society SACD revolted at this initiative "Operation Clear Channel is a shame that flouts all the rules of law and in particular copyright"
Put before the fait accompli, the CSA did not appreciate at all that Canal + did not warn him of his gesture. The media regulator notes that all other radio and TV media have been quick to warn him of their grid changes. In an interview with the Correspondence of the Press, Roch-Olivier Maistre, the president of the CSA took again the hand. "The operation that Canal + launched can only be limited in duration because it is likely to alter the balance between pay and free channels".
The CSA thus enjoined Canal + to stop its diffusion in light on March 31, as that was planned initially. A call to order. Because, the CSA feared that Canal + would not extend its free experience with the probable extension of the containment measures.
A spokesperson for the Canal + group told AFP that the channel did receive "a letter from the CSA, which regretted not having been warned but which authorized us to continue the operation until the date scheduled until 'as of March 31'. The Canal + group believes that it made this decision alone and not under pressure from the CSA.
In the end, Canal + will have offended a good part of the French audiovisual landscape, but it will have gained a good brand image with the general public.
