Jonathan Cohen as a cop and charming singer in Reunion, Éric Judor with a wig for a Christmas comedy, Pierre Niney associated with videographers McFly and Carlito to create a French superhero, a documentary series on the youtubeur Squeezie, the revival of the Popstars tele-hook formerly broadcast by M6… It is in the green setting of the Bois de Boulogne, in Paris, that Amazon unsheathed its new cartridges of content on Monday evening in an attempt to convince even more French people to subscribe to its Prime service, which also allows for quick delivery. With always this pronounced taste for secrecy and the refusal of transparency, like most Gafa.
Amazon Prime Video refuses, in fact, to reveal the number of its subscribers in France and the precise audiences of its productions, whether football matches or films. Last year, we learned the audience of the Roland-Garros match between Nadal and Djokovic (3 million viewers) only a month after its broadcast and without knowing the degree of reliability of this data.
If the group welcomes, for example, the success of the action film Medellín with Franck Gastambide, it does not give any precise figures on the number of thousands or millions of viewers in France and in the world to have watched it. We just learned that it is “the best performing French film on Prime Video in France” and ranked “in the top 10 in many countries”.
It is also impossible to know how many French people have bought the Warner pass at around 10 euros to see HBO series formerly on OCS such as Succession. Damage ! A glimmer of hope, perhaps. The Institut Médiamétrie has indicated that it will measure the audiences of Amazon and Netflix, whether they like it or not. And, after Netflix, Amazon is currently considering a subscription offer with advertising. This will perhaps encourage him to be more transparent…
On the film side, Amazon Prime Video relies on around fifteen projects a year. But the American group, which recently bought MGM Studios for more than 8 billion dollars, remains nevertheless angry with the chronology of the media in France. This protection system requires that cinema films released in theaters are only available 17 months later on paid streaming platforms. “The rules of cinema in France ‘disinvite’ us from releasing films in theaters. Video-on-demand services are disadvantaged. We hope for more flexibility for the benefit of the public and our Prime subscribers,” argues Brigitte Ricou-Bellan, president of the French subsidiary of Amazon Prime Video.
Discussions are currently taking place. But Canal, the leading funder of French cinema with around 200 million euros each year, does not want to see its privilege of being able to broadcast films only six months after their release abolished. In the meantime, Amazon refuses to release in France the next film by Luca Guadagnino, Challengers, with Zendaya, while it will be visible in theaters in the rest of the world… The group wants to continue to sell its films to French channels, in particular to the TF1 group, for event broadcasts, as shown by the recent programming of Mélanie Laurent’s film Le Bal des Folles on TMC, which attracted nearly 600,000 viewers.
Monday evening, Prime Video unveiled nine original French creations. Among them, Le Stupéfiant Noël des Silestone, with Éric Judor, takes up the codes of old American Christmas comedies like Maman j’ai missed l’avion; the thriller Tigers and Hyenas by Jérémie Guez, talented director of the BRI series on Canal, with Fianso, Géraldine Nakache and Olivier Marchal; the French superhero comedy Feuilleman, in development by actor Pierre Niney and humorous videographers McFly and Carlito; Sulak, by actress and director Mélanie Laurent, on the life of a robber in the 1980s. “There are more and more content offers, Amazon must bet on a quirky tone and take risks”, comments Thomas Dubois, Director of Original Creations Amazon Studios for France. Concrete example: Jonathan Cohen holds the main role of the film Sentinel, the story of a cop in Reunion who is also a charming singer in his spare time…
The fiction series Trash, developed with television producer Alexia Laroche-Joubert, will reveal behind the scenes of the reality TV show Loft Story, which was all the rage in 2001 and launched reality TV’s first star, Loana. For entertainment shows, Amazon Prime Video always bets on LOL: who laughs comes out! (who becomes Quirit and who cries fate!), whose third season was a hit and under fire from a recent controversy after criticism from Blanche Gardin. The two new features are the relaunch of M6 Popstars’ tele-hook, which notably launched the careers of M Pokora and Chimène Badi, and a new documentary series in the vein of that on Orelsan. This time, it will be about following the youtuber Squeezie and showing behind the scenes of the world of content creators. As for the Booba series already announced, Ourika, it will be available by the end of the year.
On the sports side, not much new under the sky of Amazon. The American giant will continue to broadcast Roland-Garros and Ligue 1 in particular. The platform has specified that it will exclusively broadcast the next two derbies between Paris Saint-Germain and Olympique de Marseille. They will take place on Sunday September 24 (matchday 6, first leg in Paris) and Sunday March 31 (matchday 27, return match in Marseille). Will we know the exact audiences of the two matches?
