France: Netflix offer criticised
June 26, 2014
From Pascale Paoli-Lebailly in Paris
A number of French audiovisual executives have put into perspective the quality of Netflix’s SVoD offering, while acknowledging the strength of its business model.
“Netflix has no fresh content but movies and series picked up from libraries,” commented M6 Web MD Valéry Gerfaud at a hearing at French Senate, while another highlighted the lack of fresh productions.
But all agreed on the fact that though VoD is well established in France, what the market lacks is SVoD low-cost offers. They also doubted a platform can finance creation with a price lower than €10.
Highlighting the simplicity and personalisation of Netflix experience, they also underlined the technical and financial strength of the OTT operator. E-TF1 managing director Olivier Abécassis, said: “Netflix employs 900 engineers, what we aren’t able to do in a TV channel. It has also been able to pour €147 million into its UK launch, even though its business there will never make the same profit.”