Disney Plus has signed an exclusive distribution deal with the leading pay TV company in France, Canal Plus Group. The deal comes ahead of the streaming service launching in the country on March 31, 2020.
Canal Plus already has access to films from Walt Disney Pictures, Lucasfilm, Pixar and Marvel Studios as the result of a long-term programming agreement. Now the new stage in their relationship has been confirmed by Canal Plus Group CEO Maxime Saada on his Twitter account.
This new deal means that Canal Plus will be the sole distributor for Disney Plus across France. In other words, groups such as Orange, SFR, Free and Bouygues Telecom will need to go through Canal Plus for service access.
What’s more, Canal Plus will retain its exclusive rights to Disney content, with titles of note including the Star Wars and Avengers movies. They will also be the only distributor of Disney channels in France, such as Disney Junior and the Disney Channel. The Fox Play, Voyage and National Geographic channels will continue to be distributed by Canal Plus, too.
Other licensing agreements Disney holds in Europe include Sky in the UK, Italy and Germany. In France, other distribution deals with streaming services include Netflix for all of France’s telco services, with Amazon Prime Video recently securing agreements with SFR and Free.
