Al Jazeera’s new French pay-television operation is struggling to secure distribution for its sports channels on the country’s dominant pay-television platform, Canal Plus. Talks about a carriage deal for the channels have reached a “standstill,” according to La Tribune.
Al Jazeera has reportedly demanded a minimum guarantee of €50 million ($65.5 million) and access to subscriber data from Canal Plus’s Foot Plus pay-per-view football service, which will close at the end of the 2011-12 season, as part of a carriage deal.
Al Jazeera’s proposed terms are said to have contrasted with those of its revenue-sharing deals with its other distribution partners. Earlier this week, the Satellifax website reported that Al Jazeera had agreed carriage deals with telecommunications companies Orange and Bouygues and added that talks with the SFR telco were also likely to result in a deal.
Al Jazeera has outbid Canal Plus for a range of top football rights, and will launch its BeIN Sport 1 channel on June 1 ahead of its blanket coverage of the Uefa Euro 2012 tournament. Sister channel BeIN Sport 2 is due to launch on August 10.
In December 2011, after Al Jazeera agreed to pay €60 million per year to acquire live rights for the Uefa Champions League from 2012-13 to 2014-15 – almost double the €31 million per year paid by Canal Plus in the existing deal – Canal Plus chief executive described Al Jazeera’s approach as “economically irrational.” Earlier this month, Rodolph Belmer, the deputy chief executive of Canal Plus, said that his company would be able to operate successfully alongside Al Jazeera as long as the latter acted “rationally.”
The Ligue de Football Professionnel, the French football league, has now sent a letter to all club presidents to defend Al Jazeera and accuse Canal Plus of “engaging in an intense lobbying campaign to describe Al Jazeera as irrational.”
The letter said: “Al Jazeera is not overpaying for football rights. Canal Plus has for a long time reduced its investment in football and increased its bottom line. This is a strategy that has…left the field open for the arrival of a foreign investor.”