France: Canal+ and beIN Sports have signed an draft agreement for exclusive distribution (Le Monde)

The pay-TV groups Canal+ and beIN Sports France have signed an exclusive distribution agreement on 17/02/2016, according to Le Monde. If the agreement is approved by the French Competition Authority, which received the draft on the same day, French viewers will need to subscribe to Canal+ or its Canalsat package in order to access beIN Sports.

This deal would cost €100m per year to Vivendi, the parent company of the pay-TV group Canal+, according to the French newspaper Liberation, on 28/01/2016. Negotiations between the two broadcasters began in December 2015. beIN Sports France could be losing €250m to €300m per year, according to the investment bank Natixis. At Vivendi, which presented its annual results for 2015 on 18/02/2016, Canal+ could lose "at least €100m and between 200,000 and 300,000 subscribers," in France within a year, said Le Monde.

At the request of Vivendi, the French Competition Authority will soon launch (possibly in February 2016) a market test to probe the evolution of competition in the French market for pay-TV. To convince the Competition Authority, Vivendi…