French pay TV group Canal Plus and the cinema industry have signed a 5-year agreement in the last few days before the Cannes Film Festival, reports Les Echos. Over 70 percent of the sector has signed up, said Canal Plus managing director Rodolphe Belmer. Only the APC and UPF, both producers’ organisations, have not signed the agreement that has been in discussion for several months.Canal Plus, which must spend 12.5 percent of its revenue to buy French and European films (around EUR 225 million a year), obtained more flexibility on transmission timeframes. It will be able to show the same movie 50 times during 6 months, compared with 36 airings over 3 months. Canal Plus hopes that boosting its film programming will allow it to compete better with Netflix.

In return, Canal Plus agreed to spend 17 percent of its film budget on small films produced for under EUR 4 million. It will also spend 85 percent of its film pre-buying budget on  projects where it is the first investor. The broadcaster also agreed to not show movies on which it has exclusivity for a year during the last three months of this window. The minimum number of times a movie can air is ten.

http://www.telecompaper.com/news/canal-plus-reaches-agreement-with-film-industry–1081640