Groupe Canal+

Groupe Canal+ SA (Canal+) is a French film and television studio and distributor. It is owned and controlled by Vivendi and has a film library in excess of 5,000 films. Vivendi has sold some parts of Canal Plus to private investors which are still using the name of Canal Plus. It is headquartered in Issy-les-Moulineaux, in the suburbs of Paris.

Canal Plus is "the French film industry's biggest financial backer, beloved by French cineastes".

The fact that it is a major source of finance for domestic film production, participating in the financing of the vast majority of films produced in France is a major source of Canal Plus' strength. It has even created its own subsidiary companies with direct involvement in film production.

StudioCanal, one of these subsidiaries, spends €200 million a year on movie production establishing as the first port of call outside the U.S. for intelligent upmarket movies like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy which is fully financed.

Corporate divisions

 * Canal+ &mdash;Premium Television; Metropolitan France, Caribbean, Africa, Southern Pacific, Indian Ocean, and Vietnam
 * Canal+ Cinéma&mdash;Premium Television devoted to movie
 * Canal+ Sport&mdash;Premium Television devoted to sports programmes
 * Canal+ Family&mdash;Premium Television devoted to family programming
 * Canal+ Séries&mdash;Premium Television devoted to series
 * Canal+ Décalé&mdash;Premium Television, delayed broadcast of programmes from Canal+
 * Ciné+&mdash;Set of six thematic cable television channels
 * Clique TV&mdash;Cable Television
 * Comédie+ (formerly Comédie!)&mdash;Cable Television devoted to humorous programs
 * CStar Hits France&mdash;Cable Television devoted to musical programs
 * Foot+&mdash;Cable Television devoted to soccer
 * Rugby+&mdash;Cable Television devoted to rugby football
 * Golf+&mdash;Cable Television devoted to golf
 * Infosport+&mdash;Cable Television News channel devoted to sports
 * Piwi+ (formerly Piwi)&mdash;Cable Television devoted to children programs
 * Planète+&mdash;Cable Television devoted to documentaries
 * Planète+ A&E&mdash;Cable Television devoted to documentaries from A&E Networks channels
 * Planète+ Crime+Investigation&mdash;Cable Television devoted to crimes documentaries
 * Polar+&mdash;Cable Television devoted to movie
 * Seasons&mdash;Cable Television devoted to documentaries
 * Télétoon+ (formerly Télétoon)&mdash;Cable Television devoted to animation
 * CNews (formerly i>Télé)&mdash;National News channel
 * C8&mdash;National channel
 * CStar&mdash;National channel
 * MyCanal&mdash;Free streaming service for Canal+ subscribers to stream the channel's programming live and on-demand
 * CanalPlay&mdash;Streaming and on-demand service
 * Canal+ Régie&mdash;Advertising network for the group channel's and the cinema operator UGC
 * Canal &mdash;pay-TV provider
 * Canal+ USA &mdash; United States-based cable television networks
 * AMC
 * BBC America (49.99% with BBC Studios)
 * IFC
 * Shudder &mdash; Streaming service devoted to horror, thriller and supernatural fiction
 * Sundance TV
 * We TV
 * Canal+ International &mdash; International television channels
 * StudioCanal &mdash;film producer and distributor
 * StudioCanal Home Entertainment (North America, the United Kingdom and Ireland)
 * SAM (Scandinavian)
 * Red Production Company (United Kingdom)
 * TANDEM Productions (Germany)

Canal+
Canal+ has operations in France and Poland, through its flagship brand Canal+. It is encrypted for most of the day, and viewers who wish to watch the channel's more popular programming (new-release movies and live sport) must subscribe to the service. Previously this involved the hire of a decoder to decrypt the signal, but increasingly Canal+ is being offered as part of a multi-channel satellite or cable television package (known as CanalSat[previously Canal Satellite]in France.).

Former operations
Canal Plus came to the Nordic countries in 1997, acquiring the two FilmNet-channels and renaming them. The Nordic part was sold in October 2003 to the Telenor-owned Canal Digital, and the Canal+ brand was used under license until 2012, when the channels were re-branded C More Entertainment.

Canal+ has previously also been present in several other European countries; but as of 2016 it is only active in Poland and France.

Canal+ Hi-Tech was a private television channel in France dedicated to the broadcasting of films in 16:9 aspect ratio and HDTV Canal+ 16/9 changed its name to Canal+ Hi-Tech in March 2005. Through this change, the channel offered the latest technological advances in terms of image and sound, especially with high-definition programs. The channel was deleted when switching Canal+ to the 16:9 format.

Canal+ 3D was born on June 10, 2010, to broadcast some matches of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in 3D. It regularly broadcast films or sporting events of Canal+ in stereoscopic 3D format.

It stopped broadcasting on January 24, 2012.

StudioCanal
StudioCanal is a production company created in 1999, associated with NBC Universal until 2009. Nowadays, StudioCanal is operating in several countries such as Germany, Japan, or Australia. For the movie industry, it's a major player at the European level

Canal
Formerly Canal Satellite Numérique, a pay satellite and IPTV distributor (as CanalSAT DSL). CanalSat is a satellite TV package launched in 1992. A merger between CanalSat and TPS started in 2007, and finally canceled by the Competition Authority in 2011. With CanalSat, the utilization of the card pairing (QEV) technology allow access to many channels such as, Eurosport, Paris Premiere or LCI.

Thema
Thema is a Canal+ Group company that oversees distribution of Pay TV services in various countries, and is the parent company of channels including Novelas TV and Nollywood TV. Thema was founded in 2005 by François Thiellet, and acquired by Canal+ in 2014.