As Christmas approaches, it smells like fir for Salto! Faced with increasingly tough competition and a lack of enthusiasm from its shareholders, the French streaming platform could simply disappear.
Salto, the French Netflix, could well see its fate sealed before the end of the month. Indeed, as reported The world, the various shareholders of the streaming platform, namely the TF1, M6 and France Télévisions groups, are to meet in the coming days to decide on the future of the platform. And the least we can say is that the situation is not in favor of Salto. Indeed, the paid video on demand service is struggling to cope with its giant competitors such as Netflix, Disney + or Amazon Prime Video, and the coup de grace could well come from its own shareholders. He had already experienced some tensions at the time of the attempted merger between TF1 and M6 – a project which has since aborted – because France Télévisions had expressed its wish to leave the boat. To make matters worse, TF1 and M6 are in turn launching their paid subscriptions for their own services. In short, no one seems to believe in the project anymore…
Salto: a streaming service that struggles to convince
The Salto platform was set up jointly by the TF1, M6 and France Télévisions groups in the fall of 2020, a period of pandemic and confinement favorable to the launch of a new video on demand service (SVOD) made in France. It offers to find favorite French shows and series – such as Scènes de households and HPI – and to watch live television. It also offers popular American series, such as And just like that – the reboot of Sex and the City –, Stargirl, Pretty Little Liars or All American, as well as some great exclusives, such as the reunion episode of Friends and Harry Potter Return to Hogwarts , released the same day on HBO Max. We can also highlight the presence of “unreleased Salto” French productions, but they only represent a very small part of the catalog. A significant investment, but which is struggling to seduce the public, with less than a million subscribers in 2022 – for comparison, Netflix has 10 million French users.
To try to cover its costs, Salto was forced to increase the price of its subscriptions, by increasing its basic offer from 6.99 euros to 7.99 euros per month for three screens simultaneously, and by places an annual subscription at 69.99 euros. A dangerous technique because such a price can put off potential subscribers. This is more than the 6.99 euro Amazon Prime subscription which, as a bonus, offers many more services – in addition to the SVOD service, the user benefits from free and priority deliveries, from millions of music titles to listen offline, a selection of digital books and video games.
Salto: tough French and American competition
Salto suffers from weight competition. Of course, the platform has to deal with the heavyweights of Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV and OCS, but also with newcomers who have a fairly extensive catalog: Paramount+ and Universal+, which arrive in December with fairly low prices. . With the multiplication of platforms, the content will be more and more scattered, and it will be necessary to pay more and more to access the desired programs. With widespread inflation, the public will be forced to make choices. And it’s not sure that Salto will make it to the top of the rankings…
But competition also comes from Salto’s own shareholders! Indeed, in November 2021 TF1 launched myTF1 Max, a paid formula presented as an extension of its classic free replay service. Ditto on the side of M6 with 6play max. It is therefore a safe bet that the two groups favor their own SVOD services to the detriment of Salto, which will then have to be satisfied with the crumbs. Moreover, Rodolphe Belmer, the new general manager of TF1, declared in Letter A consider withdrawing from the Salto platform even if, officially “no decision is made” on the side of the group, as reported by Le Monde. Same story with M6, which has no “pre-established strategy.” At France TV, on the other hand, skepticism is in order. Delphine Ernotte, the president of the group, explained that she was looking for 45 million euros to complete the 2023 budget of France Télévisions, i.e. the exact sum that the public audiovisual group was to obtain for the purchase of its shares in Salto in the event of of a merger between TF1 and M6. Three outcomes are possible: a takeover of all the shares by a single shareholder – an unlikely scenario –, new investments to develop the platform – ditto… – or an outright liquidation…