French pay-TV provider Canal Plus has presented a restructuring plan to its employees, saying it wants to transform its French operations and make them more profitable. With the move, the company plans to start a voluntary redundancy programme that it expects will eliminate up to 492 jobs. This should help strengthen its financial position.
The company explained that it has, over the past few years, pushed international development, a digital switchover and an innovative customer service in order to become a global exporter of French and European content. The company said that since 2015, it has introduced a number of initiatives, redesigned its offers, entered into partnerships, provided the Canal+ channel with no contract for under EUR 20 per month and brought investments to over EUR 3 billion per year. It also launched the myCanal decoders and started a costs savings plan. Unfortunately, the company said these initiatives did not bring about their desired results. Canal Plus said that only an accelerated digitisation and flexibility will assure sustainable growth.
The company has presented its plans to its Social and Economic Committee. The voluntary redundancy plan will start on 15 and 16 July.
The broadcaster’s French operations saw first-quarter revenues decline by 5 percent year-on-year to EUR 761 million, due to ongoing customer losses. In 2016, the business started to implement a EUR 300 million cost reduction plan to achieve financial break even in 2018, which included the closure of one of its French customer service centres.
