Ernotte: French players need to retain exclusive rights

French TV industry players need to retain exclusive rights to their content rather than to sell them on to Netflix, according to France Télévisions director-general Delphine Ernotte.

Delphine Ernotte

Speaking to Europe1 radio, Ernotte said that French channels had to retain the rights to their own shows to develop their own platform.

“I think that if you want to protect French fiction and a strong European fiction, it’s important that all the actors – the producers, creators and distributors – control the distribution,” she said. “It is absolutely important that the French actors keep the exclusivity of their production and control the life of the works.”

She said that Disney had decided to retain its own rights in the US to global distribution and that it was necessary to follow this example in Europe.

Ernotte said that Salto, the planned French Netflix alternative to be created as a joint project between its free-to-air broadcasters, would enable its backers to distribute a much larger catalogue of content than is available to day.

France Télévisions, TF1 and M6 Group teamed up in June to announce their plan to launch a joint national OTT TV platform.

The trio plan to launch a joint offering with a variety of programming genres including news and debate, magazine programmes, special events, sports, entertainment and French homegrown drama as well as US series, documentaries and movies. The platform will include avant-premieres of some content.

The broadcasters said the common platform would “actively participate” in the creation of French and European original content.