Towards a disruption of French streaming? In any case, this is what the new partnership between Amazon Prime Video France and the Warner Bros group suggests. In a press release published this Thursday, January 12, the commercial giant’s streaming service announces that it has signed an exclusive agreement with the American group Warner Bros. Discovery. A news that only confirms the growing influence of the platform in France. For the past two years, Prime Video France has seemed to be trying to attract the most diverse audience possible by getting their hands on successful original content and sport (Roland Garros, Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 football).
Thus, the HBO series, which recently left OCS – acquired by Canal + – are joining Prime Video. From next March, Prime Video subscribers will be able to subscribe, for a still undetermined price, to the “Warner Pass”. This offer, which has never been offered elsewhere before, will give access to the entire HBO catalog including the cult series “Games of Thrones” or “Sex and the City” but also new series such as “The Idol” or new seasons of flagship series like “True Detective”. Among the other advantages of this package: members will also be able to watch the 12 channels of Warner Bros. Discovery, including Warner TV, Eurosport, Discovery Channel, Boomerang, Cartoon Network, TMC and CNN.
Market share to conquer
In addition to being unprecedented – in other countries the two groups Warner Bros, Discovery and Amazon are not on good terms – this partnership overshadows Netflix, which has been struggling since the slowdown in the Covid-19 crisis. For a year, the platform has failed to attract many subscribers. And in April 2022, for the first time in more than 10 years, the company’s value fell 25% on the stock markets, or $30 billion less market capitalization. To save its economic model, Netflix has therefore opted for several solutions: stricter supervision of subscriber sharing in 2023, a subscription with advertisements at 5.99 euros per month and a general increase in the price of its subscriptions.
Since the arrival in France of Netflix in 2014, its subscription has experienced an average increase of 41%, or 3.8 euros compared to 2022, indicates a recent study carried out by hellosafe. And the premium (four simultaneous accesses authorized) is the one with the greatest increase, going from 11.99 euros to 17.99 (+ 50%, 6 euros). Price increases which “have had an impact on unsubscriptions”, alerted L’Express, consultant specialist in video streaming Pascal Lechevallier, last week. In the midst of global inflation, sensitivity to tariffs is at its maximum. In addition, half of the French population does not yet have a subscription to an SVOD service, according to the specialist. Suffice to say that there are still market shares to conquer for Prime Video France.