Spanish agency and production group Mediapro and telco Altice have finalised a deal to co-broadcast Uefa club competitions next season in France and allow Altice’s SFR platform to distribute the agency’s new Téléfoot channel.
Mediapro is expected to pay half of Altice’s €350m ($405m) outlay on the Champions League and Europa League for 2020-21 under the deal, according to local media.
The agency will show the matches on Téléfoot, which it is launching on the back of its €780m-per-season acquisition of the bulk of Ligue 1 broadcast rights from 2020-21 to 2023-24.
SFR will distribute Téléfoot for the entirety of the upcoming four-season Ligue 1 rights cycle. The new French season is scheduled to begin on August 21.
Mediapro will charge a monthly subscription of €25.90 for the channel, which in addition to the Uefa club competitions (for 2020-21) and Ligue 1, will show Ligue 2 (for the 2020-24 cycle) and the Europa League/Europa Conference League (for the 2021-24 cycle).
It is aiming to attract 3.5 million subscribers to Téléfoot.
SFR is the first linear distributor Mediapro has found for Téléfoot. Its carriage discussions with traditional distributors have been complicated by the latter’s reluctance to pay a minimum guarantee for the channel. SFR is not thought to be paying a minimum guarantee.
The main distribution platforms in France are pay-television operator Canal Plus and telcos Orange, Bouygues Telecom, Free, and SFR.
Negotiations with Free and Orange “have advanced little”, L’Équipe said last week, while those with Canal Plus were said to have reached a stalemate.
Mediapro’s carriage deal with SFR follows reports last week that the agency had agreed Téléfoot distribution with social-media giant Facebook. But the platform has said that any deal would not involve a fee.