13/03/2003 - Major reorganisation includes 450 jobs lost and less money for film production

Management at the Canal+ Group (part of Vivendi Universal) announced it was laying off some 450 French-based staff of a total of 3,038 and announced its intention to outsource 138 positions. Although this is bad news, it is nowhere near as bad as the rumours of between 700 and 800 redundancies that were floating around.
These cuts do however confirm the difficult financial situation of France’s leading pay-TV has been losing subscribers at a rate of 70,000 for the last two years and has debts of Euros5m. The situation reflects that of Canal+’s troubled parent company, Vivendi Universal, whose losses for 2002 stand at Euros23.3billion, although it did manage to reduce its debts from Euros21.4b to Euros 12.3b over a twelve-month period.
The job cuts are part of a wide-ranging reorganisation plan that includes the Canal+ Group’s gradual selling off of its foreign subsidiaries in Italy, Scandinavia and Benelux in order to focus on France and its two leading TV sectors: sport and cinema.
Anxiety at Canal+’s film production arm, Studio Canal, is running high after it was announced that 34 or the company's 250 employees were about to lose their jobs. Studio Canal also intends being much more selective in its investments in the future. Canal+ has always been the main source of money for the French film production industry through the presale of titles: in 2002, they invested Euros122.99m in 109 films. French legislation obliges the network to contribute 20 per cent of its profits to the purchase of films to broadcast; 12 per cent of this is spent on European titles and 9 per cent on domestic ones, with a minimum that is set according to the number of subscribers. It follows that the decline of Canal+ will result in an automatic reduction in funds available to French feature film producers who will henceforth be obliged to look elsewhere for financial support.

(Translated from French)