France Channels to launch its streaming service
in the United States in Q2 2021

(15 mach 2021)

France Channels will offer 2,000 hours of French programs including films, as well as the broadcast of France 24.

France Channeles vise entre 200 000 et 400 000 abonnés d'ici trois ans !!!

Netgem partners with France Channel to launch the first “BritBox-like” international SVOD service for French original programming

"The offering follows a similar model as BritBox for British content, where the France Channel premium offering will promote French original programming abroad. The new service brings together in a single place a wide range of programmes covering movies, TV series & drama, animation, documentaries, and TV shows.

Netgem will provide France Channel with an end-to-end solution delivered “as a Service”, enabling SVOD services in multi-screen mode as well as rich features for a fast, intuitive and immersive user experience. The application developed by Netgem will be available on iOS, Android, web browsers (Chrome, Firefox and Edge) and on Roku, the connected TV leader in the USA. The offer will be launched in the United States in early 2021 under the “French Channel” brand. "

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"Promoting French culture, such is the ambition of the subscription streaming platform "France Channel" which will be launched in the United States before the summer, announced Monday the company France Channels, which hopes to eventually conquer d 'other countries.

Cinema ("The Visitors", "Arsène Lupine", "The young Werther"), series ("Tomorrow belongs to us", "Un si grand soleil"), magazines, documentaries or live shows ... In total, "more than 2,000 hours "of content, with English subtitles, will be offered to subscribers for $ 6.99 per month, Julien Verley, president and founder of France Channels, told AFP.

Added to this is access to the France 24 news channel, in English and French, a statement said.

The platform wants to be "a window on France" in "all its aspects", according to Mr. Verley, who has been refining this project since he left, in 2019, France Télévisions, where he was director of commercial development, in particular in charge of de Salto (the platform created by France Télévisions, TF1 and M6 at the end of 2020).

"A collection of contents" will thus be subtitled in French to help the learning of the language of Molière, which concerns "1.5 million Americans" according to Mr. Verley. A concept reminiscent of the free platform launched in September by TV5 Monde (not yet available in the United States), focused on the French-speaking world and not on France.

France Channel will offer content dubbed in English only when it already exists, the platform does not yet have the means to develop dubbing, added Julien Verley, who hopes to extend its offer to other countries, initially English-speaking, in a "12 to 18 month horizon".

In the United States, it will be able to rely on distribution partnerships forged in particular with the "leader in connected television Roku" and the Struum platform.

This newcomer to the boiling world of SVOD (subscription video platform) benefits from an initial investment of "several hundred thousand euros", financed in particular by Julien Verley and Bertrand Méheut, ex-boss of Canal + , Chairman of the Supervisory Board of France Channels.

The companies Vitis, a subsidiary of the Netgem group, "specializing in the development of complete media solutions", and Cyber Group Studios, "leader in the production and distribution of animation content" complete the round table formalized Monday, France Channels benefiting in addition to a "loan from the Institute for the Financing of Cinema and Cultural Industries (IFCIC)", according to the press release."