Vivendi’s arrival in the capital of Rush It comes at a time of full company turmoil. The French group has drawn a new balance of forces within the editor of The country and it is an ideal partner for the relaunch of the audiovisual area.
Josep OurgholianPresident of Prisa for a couple of months, he already communicated what his interests were. “You probably have to add an audiovisual part, because that’s what this group lacks,” he said in an interview in the newspaper. The country within days of being appointed non-executive chairman.
Prisa left the audiovisual area in Spain – it has kept it until recently in other countries such as Portugal – when it decided to sell Digital Terrestrial Television (DTS) to Telefónica in 2015. Prisa was the majority shareholder in this business, which was initially baptized as Canal Satélite and later mutated into Vía Digital. Today it is known as Movistar +.
Therefore, the telecommunications company, also a Prisa shareholder, now has the opportunity to participate in this alliance. He yes of those of José María Álvarez-Pallete would also mean a shift in Telefónica’s conception of Prisa, since it would go from considering its participation from purely financial to a potential industrial partner.
What can Vivendi bring to Prisa
With the arrival of Vivendi, the possibilities of exploring this business increase. The French group has developed its division of cinema, television series and sports through various platforms.
In this sense, one of its most important assets is Canal +, a prominent player among premium and thematic television channels. In France it has three open television channels and in the rest of the world it has not stopped growing in recent years, reaching more than 20 million subscribers.
At the production level, Vivendi is also a shareholder of Banijay, with about 33% of its shares. It is an international content producer and distributor with a presence in 22 countries and a catalog that reaches 88,000 hours of original programming, according to its own figures.
Objectives: promote “entertainment content”
Despite the fact that everything is in a very embryonic process, Vivendi has already expressed its interest in the market to implement its strategy, “which has very clear synergies with Prisa, to strengthen its digital content, both educational and informational and entertainment in spanish”.
Only in Spain, the French group owns the Spanish television production company Bamboo Productions, the one responsible for bringing successful series such as Farina, Velvet O Cable girls.
Bambú Producciones, from Vivendi, has already worked with Spanish groups such as Atresmedia and Movistar + (Telefónica)
Some of these productions have been broadcast by the group Atresmedia or through the Movistar + platform. It has also reached agreements with Netflix.
Who is Vivendi
The name of Vivendi sounds little in Spain despite having a lot of presence through its investees. The owner of this group is the French businessman Vincent Bollore through its holding company Bolloré SE. The executive, a man close to the former prime minister Nicolas sarkozy, has a fortune of 6,000 million euros, according to Forbes.
One of the companies under the Vivendi umbrella is Have, the communication agency that operates in more than 100 countries and that in Spain has several offices, both for the main brand and its other brands.
Vivendi opposed the merger between Mediaset España and Mediaset Italia in 2019
But Vivendi has been in the spotlight in our country for the last year due to its battle with Mediaset, of which it is also a shareholder. The company, which has also staged shareholder battles in Telecom Italia and Lagardère, opposed the interests of the Berlusconi.
The main shareholders of the owner of Telecinco wanted to merge the Spanish subsidiary with the Italian parent, but Vivendi, which was unable to exercise all its voting rights at the shareholders meeting that led to the merger, appealed the decision to the courts and led the cat to the water.
Two other areas in which it is also strong are music and video games, with its participation in Universal Music Group and Gameloft, respectively. In the first sector it also adds to Olympia Production already U-Live, who own a dozen music festivals in France and the UK.
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