French telco SFR-Numericable, owned by telco Altice, has today (Wednesday) unveiled it will launch a host of new sports television channels.
Altice owner Patrick Drahi will transfer all his French media assets into SFR-Numericable, with the group stating its intention to be the number one content provider in France.
Subject to regulatory approval, SFR-Numericable will take over the 49-per-cent stake in NextRadioTV and has entered into exclusive negotiations to acquire all the French newspapers and magazines owned by Drahi’s holding company, Altice NV.
The deals will value NextRadioTV at €741m ($845.5m) and Altice Media Group at €241m. In a statement, SFR-Numericable said it would create a series of cable-television channels dedicated to sports and news in France.
According to French newspaper Le Monde, the Sport 1, Sport 2, Sport 3, Sport 4K, Sport 5 and BFM-TV Sport channels will be launched. Sport 1 will be dedicated to football, with Altice in November having secured rights to the English Premier League covering three seasons, from 2016-17 to 2018-19.
Sport 2 will broadcast other sports, Sport 3 will be dedicated to extreme sports, Sport 4K will be a high-definition service and Sport 5 will offer combat sports. BFM-TV Sport will be a sports news channel. The channels will exploit the rights currently shown by Altice’s basic-tier sports broadcaster, Ma Chaîne Sport.
SFR-Numericable said: “These projects represent a unique opportunity to make SFR a true cross-media content publisher based on a very diversified premium brand portfolio. These acquisitions are part of an industrial strategy enabling SFR to accelerate the deployment of global convergence in telecoms-media, content and advertising.”