Altice France announced that it has reached an agreement with rival Free over the linear distribution of the three free-to-air TV channels that were dropped from Free’s IPTV platform on 27 August. BFMTV, RMC Decouverte and RMC Story have now been restored alongside two other local channels (BFM Paris and BFM Lyon Metropole), said the company. The news follows a similar deal agreed by Altice and Orange on 09 September for the same channels.
According to AFP, Altice has reportedly conceded that the linear distribution of its channels could resume without any compensation from Free, in line with the recent deal agreed with Orange. Both Free and Orange had rejected Altice’s request for carriage fees as part of contract renewal negotiations, opposing any remuneration for linear TV channels available on a free-to-air basis over DTT.
The channels’ associated on-demand services, such as replay, will reportedly be discussed in separate negotiations. Freebox TV customers lost access to these services in April.
