In a wide-ranging interview, Canal+ chairman Maxime Saada has declared the pay-TV giant is ready and willing to distribute the new Ligue 1+ channel as early as the upcoming season. This statement comes despite a historically strained relationship with the French football league's commercial arm, LFP Media.
Saada's confidence is fueled by a string of impressive viewership numbers across the channel's sports portfolio. He highlighted the recent Champions League semi-final between Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain, which drew a massive 3.81 million viewers, making Canal+ the most-watched channel in France that evening. This performance even surpassed the combined audience of the two leading free-to-air channels for the first time.
The executive pointed to this success as proof of the channel's long-standing strategy of investing in premium sports rights. He noted that the gamble on the revamped Champions League format, for which Canal+ pays approximately 480 million euros per year, has paid off handsomely. The channel also recorded its highest-ever single-day subscription sales during this period.
Beyond European football, Saada emphasized that Canal+ is not overly reliant on any single sport. He reported that the 2025 Formula 1 season has been the channel's best since it began broadcasting the sport in 2013. Similarly, MotoGP viewership has tripled since 2019, and the Top 14 rugby league has seen a 35% audience increase since 2020.
The Premier League has also delivered strong results, with the Manchester City versus Arsenal match on April 20th attracting one million viewers. Saada stressed that this diversified sports strategy is a deliberate move to avoid the vulnerability the channel experienced in 2018 when it lost all its Ligue 1 broadcast rights in a tender process.
He also mentioned the channel's broader content appeal, noting that subscribers consume a mix of sports, cinema, series, and content from partner platforms like Netflix, Apple TV, Paramount+, and HBO Max. Canal+ has seen a continuous rise in its French subscriber base for over six years.
However, Saada identified one major threat to the business: piracy. He urged public authorities to address the issue urgently, calling an upcoming parliamentary bill on the matter essential for the future of content distribution.
Based on reporting from Foot - actualités, mercato, info & vidéo en continu.