There’s No Time Like The Present So Get On With It

Michael Hedges September 14, 2015 Follow on Twitter

From management consultants to corporate raiders the message is the same: Execution is everything. Ideas, wonderful as they are, spring up everywhere. Only a few attract listeners, viewers, readers or, best of all, money. Leaders may be credited for grand plans but putting them in motion is the real skill.

Tucked into the western outskirts of Paris is the looming Studios de Boulogne, where many post-World War II French films were made. Hollywood’s elite worked there, too: directors Billy Wilder and John Huston, actors Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, Errol Flynn, Orson Wells, Sidney Poitier, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Euro Media Group (EMG) renovated the facility in 2000, bringing it into the television age. With ambitions writ large Vivendi CEO Vincent Balloré acquired Studios de Boulogne this past week “to create and distribute more content” for the Canal+ Group subsidiary, said the company statement (September 11).

French pay cable network Canal+, the biggest part of Canal+ Group, has been using the facilities of late for news and sports programs. Co-located at Studios de Boulogne is recently acquired specialist talk-show production house Flab Productions, which produces Canal+ news program Le Grand Journal. M. Balloré’s investment company - Balloré Group - has been a significant shareholder in EMG since 2001. EMG, itself, is moving away from studio facilities management to TV production services, mostly live sports for broadcast and new media, noted by the recent acquisition of second screen specialist Netco Sports. With Flab Productions Vivendi also bought production houses Can’t Stop Media and La Parisienne d’Images, renamed Studio+.

Canal+ Group blankets the French market with several Canal+ brand extensions, most encrypted, plus 24 hours news channel i-Télé, talk channel D8 and music channel D17. The later three are to be rebranded CNews, C8 and C17, respectively, to “work more transparently, more effectively and less costly” within the Canal+ operations,” said M.Balloré in a memo to staff, quoted by OZAP (September 3).

Recent acquisitions and such are but part of the M. Bolloré’s overhaul of Canal+ Group and Vivendi, in which he now holds a 14.5% stake. From the beginning of summer new faces have appeared as old faces fade away. Canal+ CEO Rodolphe Belmer and head of cinema Nathalie Coste-Cerdan were given walking papers. There have been others. Jean-Christophe Thiery, Bolloré Media president, became Canal+ Group management board president, replacing Bertrand Meheut. M. Bolloré, who took over as Canal+ Group supervisory board chairman, made clear in the aforementioned memo that the plan is getting and holding subscribers.

“When one is appointed chairman of a large company, it is very easy not to do very much, so as not to upset the routine and to remain popular,” explained M. Balloré. “That is not the way I do things. I will therefore be fully involved and will not try to hide behind third parties when taking the necessary steps.”

Canal + Group owned and related production houses already account for about 25% of French film and TV production, reported Variety (September 9), or 15%, reported screendaily.com (September 9). Creating a “French media champion” is one ambition. "Our basic premise will be that French and European culture is rich in content and talent and capable of rivalling American or Asian content,” said M. Balloré. All that said, Canal+ Group is jumping into English-language feature film production, competition from SVoD Netflix attracting between 200 and 500 thousand subscribers in France, according to estimates.

Sports rights have been acquired, F1 rights taken from TF1 in 2013 and UEFA rights in 2014; competition from BeIN Sport noted. D8 sports director Thierry Cheleman was named head of sports for the group in the recent shake-up. Four news sports channels for Africa were announced in July. The Canal+ brand is available in French-speaking Africa, Asia and the Caribbean as well as in Poland and other countries under a license agreement.

Vivendi also raised its stake in video portal Dailymotion to 90%, telecom Orange selling another 10% for €27 million, reported Les Echos (September 1). Orange sold 80% of its stake to Vivendi in June for €217 million after the French government stopped a takeover bids from US internet portal Yahoo! and Microsoft as well as Hong Kong telecom PCCW. Google last week announced opening of a Paris production studio for YouTube content. Music videos are a pillar of Dailymotion’s traffic just as the are for YouTube. Music industry giant Universal Music is a profit pillar for Vivendi.

In June Vivendi became the largest single shareholder in Telecom Italia prompting some to suggest an eye on Berlusconi family controlled Mediaset to solidify a southern European focused TV operation to compete with Murdoch family controlled 21st Century Fox owned Sky Plc. "Rome was not built in a day," said Vivendi CEO Arnaud de Puyfontaine to Bloomberg (September 7). "When you got a big plan you have different steps and it’s not by the snap of your fingers that you do that. It’s gonna be a project on the long term and you never say never.”

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