During the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in France, NetflixAnnounceIn partnership with TF1, a major French television group, the live channel feature is expected to be launched in France from the summer of 2025, allowing users to watch up to five live TV broadcasts and on-demand videos from TF1's TV channels.
As previously added to its streaming service platformLive content such as events and reality shows, thereby expanding more content markets and gaining more user viewing time. Netflix's cooperation with TF1 can also be seen as its approach to ensuring user groups in France and deepening local content cooperation.
This collaboration includes popular variety shows like "The Voice" and sports events such as the French national football team, which will all be broadcast simultaneously through Netflix's live streaming platform in the future. TF1 will also be available for on-demand video content.
Netflix continues to deepen its local content offerings, attracting over 10 million French users.
In fact, Netflix has collaborated with TF1 in the past, including co-producing the TV series "Women at War" (Les Combattantes) and the film "Tout le bleu du ciel". This cooperation is expected to enable TF1 to reach a wider streaming audience through the Netflix service.
Netflix currently has more than 1000 million subscribers in France, accounting for about 13% of the country's population, so it will be a huge potential source of viewing traffic for TF1.
Similar to regulations in other countries and regions, France also has very strict local content investment requirements for foreign streaming platforms, including a requirement to invest a certain proportion of funds in the production of film and television content in France. This has enabled Netflix and TF1 to maintain a close long-term cooperative relationship.
From fighting against TV to becoming TV itself
Since its founding, Netflix has been hailed as a disruptor of the traditional television industry, its ad-free, unlimited on-demand model revolutionizing viewing habits. However, recent developments, coupled with partnerships with TV channel operators such as TF1, have seen Netflix seemingly returning to the traditional television model.
Netflix has also begun investing in live content in the United States, and there are also rumors that it plans to introduce more real-time interactive content, indicating that live broadcast and linear viewing modes are once again becoming a new battlefield for competition among streaming platforms.
