The Alfa goes global You battle Sky and Netflix – Il Giornale

the agreement between Mediaset and Vivendi wants to revolutionize the media and tv European scene. The union between the two companies is a bet on the future, when Internet will become crucial in terms of the distribution of content thanks to the growth of the ultra-wideband network. The Italian group and the French have decided to join forces to face the firepower of so-called “October”, the company born and raised in the network: such as Netflix, the TV via Internet which has 70 million subscribers, but also Google , Amazon and Apple who do not mind at all the video market. The agreement will be on three levels: pay TV, content and distribution. Of course the French pay TV, Canal Plus, and that of the Italians, Mediaset Premium, are not exactly in great shape but the synergies that can be developed and the ability to sell content in Italy and France could revitalize accounts. The main idea is, in fact, the establishment of a platform for the distribution of content owned by both groups and still open to other parties. They will feed into the platform business like Infinity Mediaset, which allows you to watch movies by paying a monthly subscription in Italy and Spain, and Watchever, which does the same thing for Vivendi in Germany. The idea is obviously to stem the excessive power of Netflix but also of Sky in terms of distribution and content creation, where both companies are now very strong thanks to their international presence. And, in fact, the last piece of the alliance is the most important content where a new structure will be built which will bring together the various souls of the two groups. Mediaset owns the Medusa film production company, and not only Vivendi owns Universal Music, but also of major video game publishers such as Ubisoft and Gameloft. The front of the content is the most “hot” and vital where the boss of Vivendi, Vincent Bolloré, announced significant investments to revitalize Canal Plus. So much so that the subsidiary Studiocanal, European producer and distributor of films and TV series, has accelerated the development in fiction (the sector in which it is already present with Tandem subsidiaries in Germany and Red production company in England) with the acquisition of stakes in three production companies: 33% Bamboo Producciones in Spain and 20% of UK Urban Myth Films and Sunnymarch TV.

the group also decided to launch, with the brand Studio +, the first global offering of premium series for smartphones, in particular with the ‘millennials’, ie young people aged 18 to 35 years, born with the phone in hand, they are not going to even give them up to watch TV. On this front the bet, but also the potential market is huge given that smartphone users are two billion worldwide. Mediaset confluirirà in a global network of pay TV that already has bases in France, Poland, Africa, Central America and the Far East.

Here you may realize tangles even with the Telecinco channel, the subsidiary of Mediaset Spain completing the network of synergies and interests of which, by now, the sun never sets.