Vivendi-owned Canal Plus has signed an exclusive distribution deal with rival pay-television broadcaster beIN Sports France, according to daily newspaper Le Monde.
The draft agreement was submitted yesterday (Wednesday) to France’s competition authority, l'Autorité de la Concurrence, which must approve the agreement.
The newspaper said that the deal is worth “hundreds of millions of euros.”
The carriage deal could include the acquisition of a stake in beIN Sports France by Vivendi, the report said, whilst adding that complications over competition regulations meant that a full takeover was not an option at this time.
Vivendi has been pursuing the deal in an effort to safeguard Canal Plus – a major sports broadcaster in France that has lost sports rights since the emergence of beIN Sports France. The report added that Canal Plus is thought to have lost at least 300,000 subscribers in the past year alone.