SFR to withdraw IPTV services, partnership with Canal Plus likely

Vivendi-owned French service provider SFR is to drop its own IPTV service and adopt a partnership model instead, the company has revealed in a communication to union representatives.

According to French news channel BFMTV, SFR will team up with Vivendi-owned Canal Plus to provide its TV service. BFMTV cited an SFR source as saying that the company had decided that structuring its own pay TV packages was not profitable and that it would be more lucrative to resell Canal Plus’s service instead.

SFR is likely to strike a commercial deal with Canal Plus whereby SFR IPTV subscribers will be offered similar packages from Canal Plus, according to the reports.

There has been speculation that Vivendi could sell or spin off SFR. Among options reported to be under consideration are a sale to Vodafone or a merger between SFR and cable operator Numericable.