French Streamer Salto Set To Shutter – Reports
It looks like the end of the road for Salto, the French streamer backed by the country’s major broadcasters.
Media outlets in France are reporting the troubled SVOD service – a joint venture of TF1, M6 and France Télévisions – will be closed on Friday. The two-year-old streamer has failed to take off with audiences and its subscriber base lags way behind rivals such as Netflix.
Salto’s future has been in the balance since November, when it emerged it could be sold off or shut down.
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The latter option appears to have won, with France Télévisions CEO Delphine Ernotte set to enact a “cessation of activities” and “dissolution” of the company at an extraordinary committee meeting on Friday.
A report on local media site Puremedia claims a Spanish company named Agile had explored a takeover but could not come to an agreement with shareholders.
The report claims that once the company is dissolved, its platform and technical assets could be sold to another company, with its 800,000 subscribers transferring to another streamer. Amazon and Canal+ have been linked with a deal in this scenario. If this doesn’t happen, Salto will come to a hard stop.
Salto was launched in October 2020 as a broadcaster-backed alternative to Netflix but behind-the-scenes drama and a lack of customer appetite has hamstrung its chances of establishing itself properly.
Two of its parents, TF1 Group and RTL-owned M6, had failed in a bid to merge their broadcast businesses and in November it was revealed they stepped away from the service’s supervisory board. This left France Télévisions on its own.
Puremedias reported “several dozen” staff have left Salto over the past six months.
Deadline has contacted Salto reps for comment.
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