French broadcast giant Canal+ is looking to break into the U.S. market and a stake in Lionsgate Entertainment may pave the way forward. With a minority stake in the studio, Canal+ hopes to secure a conduit for its content on the international stage.
Canal+ is a Vivendi-owned television and satellite TV provider in France currently utilizing a Pay-TV model. Advancing into the streaming space would allow it to extend its original content out of Europe and into markets otherwise outside of its reach. Vivendi has been eyeing a stake in Lionsgate’s Starz for some time along with Roku and private equity firm Apollo. As Lionsgate pushes Starz to become its own independent service, investments from Canal+ and other interested parties may make this a viable option by the end of the summer.
Lionsgate has been positioning itself as a dominant force in advertising-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) services, seeing a growing trend in the streamer marketplace. Jim Packer, Lionsgate’s President of Worldwide Television and Digital Distribution, recently stated that the number of consumers turning to multiple streaming video-on-demand services has been on a steady increase.
The studio side of Lionsgate also came together with Tubi, giving the streamer first-run access to theatrical releases. Alongside last year's acquisition of Spyglass Media Group's library and a multi-year distribution deal with Redbox, the company has a dedicated foothold on a variety of content-streaming platforms.
By not only spreading out Lionsgate properties across a variety of separate streamers but also crafting Starz into a viable streamer on its own, the studio is hoping to position itself more as a distributor than a dedicated content creator. This places Canal+ and Vivendi in an excellent position to utilize Lionsgate’s reach to bring their original content to viewers across the globe.