After ending its exclusive contracts with OCS and Canal+, the Warner Bros. Discovery announced, to everyone’s surprise, to join forces with Prime Video in France. This contract, unique on a global scale, places Amazon in a dominant position in the French television sector.
Did Amazon kill the game? After getting their hands on Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 (football), as well as Roland Garros and Wimbledon (tennis), the web giant announced on Thursday January 12 the signing of an exclusive contract with Warner Bros. Discovery, the content holder of Warner Bros, Discovery, HBO, Eurosport, TCM, CNN, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network and Boomerang.
This extraordinary signature transforms Amazon into a giant of the French audiovisual landscape, to the detriment of historical groups like Canal+ or OCS, the big losers of this merger, the extent of which no one had measured.
The Amazon/Warner alliance is a French exclusivity
The exclusivity between Amazon and Warner Bros. Discovery has something against nature. Elsewhere, that is to say in all the other countries of the world, the two groups are not really friends. For good reason, Warner has its own streaming service named HBO Max, a competitor to Prime Video.
In the United States, where HBO Max is well implemented, no one could imagine that a program like The Last of Us lands on Prime Video. It’s as if Disney decides to sell the last Star Wars to Netflix, and that the latter has the right to present it as a “Netflix Original”. In France, The Last of Us will be an “Amazon Exclusive”. France is, to our knowledge, the only country where The Last of Us will be broadcast on a competing streaming service to HBO Max and available worldwide. That’s why media like variety particularly follow the French market.
By recovering the rights The Last of Us, yet coveted by everyone (Canal+, OCS, etc.), Amazon is in a unique position. Its status is so strong in France that one of its competitors is taking the risk of strengthening it by selling it the rights to its new flagship series. A sale to Canal+, which has a more television status and historical ties to Warner Bros. Discovery, would have been much more logical.
As an indication, know that it is possible in the United States to subscribe to HBO Max in the form of an Amazon Channel. However, the content is not presented as exclusive to Amazon and remains integrated into a universe presented as that of “HBO Max”. A comparison with France is therefore not possible.
Warner dropped OCS and Canal+ in 2 weeks
How did we get here ? To fully understand the nature of this contract, which concerns The Last of Us but also the other properties of the Warner Bros. group. Discovery, we must return to the situation of the rights of the American giant at the end of 2022:
- Until December 31, OCS held an exclusivity agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery. 1er January 2023, 64 HBO series suddenly disappeared from the French platform. OCS was only able to keep recent content, of which it no longer has the exclusivity.
- The other properties of the Warner Bros. group. Discovery, like the Warner TV, Discovery, TCM Cinema, CNN, or Cartoon Network channels, were broadcast by the operators and Canal+. On January 10, Warner announced the end of the agreement with Canal+. Eurosport is not concerned.
Why Warner Bros. Didn’t Discovery renew its contract with OCS? Initially, the group planned to launch its HBO Max streaming service by the end of its contract with the Orange channels, but a change in management upset its plans. Since OCS is not in a very good economic situation (Canal+ is going to buy it), signing an extension seemed unlikely.
For several months, the media have regularly speculated on the drop point of HBO content in France, but no information had leaked despite the Amazon rumor. What was being whispered about was the arrival of content like The Last of Us and Game Of Thrones on Prime Video, not total exclusivity of the entire Warner Bros. catalog. Discovery on the Amazon platform. By offering a paid option at a price for the moment unknown (the Warner Pass, from March 2023), Amazon is putting a blow on the head of its competitors, starting with Canal+. The streaming service recovers a huge catalog and becomes the broadcaster of 12 television channels that are usually found on Canal +, which is strongly reminiscent of what happened with football in 2021. Canal + is the new target of ‘Amazon. Bad luck, the American has an almost unlimited budget to hurt him.
Is France a laboratory for Warner, before launching “MAX” in France?
According to variety, the contract between Amazon and Warner Bros. Discovery is valid until the end of 2024, although the studio plans to launch its own streaming service in Europe the same year.
However, nothing says that the Warner Pass will disappear from Prime Video the day HBO Max, or its replacement, is launched in France. As in the United States with the Channels, Warner could perfectly market its streaming service on Amazon, without giving the e-commerce giant exclusivity over its programs. Paramount+ has the same approach and markets its catalog at Apple and Amazon, in addition to its own application.
In fact, what is happening in France could serve as an experiment for the Warner Bros. group. Discovery.
At a time when the multiplication of streaming services is beginning to show its limits and when HBO Max is about to die in the United States (there is talk of a new service called “MAX”, less ambitious, which would bring together programs from of all the group’s subsidiaries), this exclusive integration with Amazon could be an experiment for Warner, which could see it as a new way to monetize its services. The fact that the price of the Warner Pass is not communicated suggests that it is not fixed. Is an exclusive distribution model on global platforms (Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Apple, etc.) the most profitable way to sell programs abroad?
Given the diversity of HBO programs, there is no doubt that the Warner Pass should be a great success. Even more if it costs less than OCS, which we won’t know until March.
