Disney has announced its decision to end its partnership with CANAL+. From January 1, 2025, customers of the encrypted channel will no longer be able to access Disney+ via their subscription, nor preview the latest films after their release in the cinema.
A real electric shock. The partnership between Disney and CANAL+ will end on January 1, 2025, the big-eared firm announced this Monday, November 4 to AFP. Concretely, CANAL+ customers will no longer be able to access the Disney+ streaming platform via their subscription.
Disney is also making the decision – and this is a first in France – to no longer let their latest films be broadcast by the encrypted channel six months after their cinema releases, as required by respect for media chronology in France. You will now have to wait 17 months to have streaming access to the new releases, directly on Disney+.
“From January 1, 2025, Canal+ customers will no longer be able to watch our new films, nor access Disney+ or our television channels via their subscription. However, all of our productions – films, series, documentaries – will remain accessible to all directly on Disney+,” they declared a few weeks after a new increase in subscription prices for their streaming platform in October. A decision taken by CANAL+ management.
A French exception
“They were kind enough to do it on our anniversary (the encrypted channel celebrated its 40th anniversary this Monday, November 4, editor’s note). And on the other hand, I can tell you that it is a fairly marginal consumption by our subscribers: they prefer, for example, MAX, Paramount, Netflix, Apple TV or Ciné+,” reacted Gérald-Brice Viret, general manager of Canal+ France, on France info. “It ends on December 31, we are not safe from meeting again one day,” he added.
In 2019, CANAL+ caused a sensation by announcing an exclusive distribution agreement for Disney’s streaming platform, a few months before its launch in France. This is part of the aggregation strategy of CANAL+ which, through some of its offers such as CANAL+ Ciné Séries, allowed its subscribers to have access to all the content of Disney+, but also Netflix, Apple TV+ , Paramount+ or even MAX.
As the largest financier of French cinema, the encrypted channel also took advantage of the first broadcast window – after their VOD release – of Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, 20th Century Fox, Blue Sky and Fox Searchlight films under of the media chronology allowing it to broadcast them six months after their theatrical release. A French exception already called into question in November 2022 by Disney as part of new negotiations between players in the sector, the big-eared firm had even threatened not to release “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” in France to broadcast it directly on Disney+ in order to put pressure on French law.
