Netflix to stream French TV content in world first

PARIS: Netflix announced Wednesday a livestreaming and on-demand content agreement with French television group TF1, its first such deal with a major traditional broadcaster anywhere in the world.

The service will launch in summer 2026, Netflix’s co-chief-executive Greg Peters told AFP, while declining to name any of the financial or other details of the tie-up with TF1.

Netflix subscribers in France will get access to TF1’s five TV channels and content from the group’s own TF1+ streaming platform –- all “without ever having to leave the Netflix environment” on their smart TV or other device, the US company said in a statement.

On offer will be sporting events, soap operas and reality shows such as the “Survivor”-style “Koh-Lanta”.

TF1 and Netflix have for years collaborated on productions like 2019’s historical drama “Le Bazar de la Charite” (”The Bonfire of Destiny”).

But France’s top private broadcaster — one of Europe’s largest — has big ambitions for TF1+ to stand on its own two feet, making the more intimate tie-up with Netflix a surprise.

The TF1 streaming platform aims to become the most popular free offering in France and the wider French-speaking world.

“TF1+ is and will remain at the centre of our strategy,“ TF1 chief executive Rodolphe Belmer told AFP ahead of the announcement.

Belmer insisted that the deal did not risk “cannibalisation” of TF1+ and was “truly complementary” in a media landscape of fragmenting audiences and growing on-demand viewing.

He added that the TF1 group had done “lots of analysis” and expected a “significantly net positive” business effect.

On Netflix’s side, “TF1 is very good with sports, with live areas that we don’t operate in a large way right now”, said Peters, who also praised the quality of the group’s scripted programming.

Netflix said in 2022 that it had topped 10 million subscribing households in France and has reported growth since then without naming concrete figures.