France's competition authority announced on Friday that it had given conditional approval to Canal+'s acquisition of OCS and the Orange movie studio, announced for January 2023, "in order to remedy the risks of harm to competition".

In a press release, it explains that Canal+ Group has undertaken to maintain two separate film acquisition teams, OCS/Ciné+ on the one hand and Canal+ on the other, to avoid a "single pre-buyer of French films for broadcast in the first pay window".

In addition, the Vivendi subsidiary will not oppose the transfer of broadcasting rights on a free-to-air catch-up TV service for French films from the Orange Studio catalog, produced prior to the acquisition and for which Canal+ does not have a distribution mandate.

Lastly, Canal+ has undertaken to offer subscription packages to interested distributors in the French overseas territories, in order to avoid the depletion of available films.

"All these commitments have been entered into for a period of five years, and are subject to review," said the authority.

OCS is the second largest pay-TV service in France after Canal+. (Written by Gaëlle Sheehan, edited by Sophie Louet)