The CANAL+ group has announced the acquisition of Zacu Entertainment, Rwanda's leading producer and distributor of audiovisual content, further strengthening its development on the continent.
With this acquisition, CANAL+ now has "more than 500 hours of
new films and series produced each year and a catalog of 700 hours, all in
Kinyarwanda," Rwanda's national language. Present in the country for
10 years, Canal+ now wants to launch "a fiction channel 100% in
Kinyarwanda."
"This acquisition marks our desire to bring the best creative talent
on board for our development on the continent and elsewhere, but also our
desire to produce content that is popular with our subscribers at the highest
level of quality," said Fabrice Faux, Director of Channels and Content
at CANAL+ International, quoted in the press release.
The pay-TV group, a subsidiary of Vivendi, had previously
made moves in Nigeria with the acquisition of Iroko, the "Nollywood" giant,
in 2019, and in Côte d'Ivoire with the production studio "Plan A," founded in
2020.
In terms of distribution, CANAL+ had 6.8 million
paying subscribers in French-speaking Africa at the end of 2021, and the group also has
an 18.4% stake in Multichoice, the leader in pay TV
in English-speaking Africa. In 2021, the group finally launched in Ethiopia "a dedicated satellite platform with more than 70 channels, including eight Canal+ channels produced specifically in Amharic," according to Vivendi's annual report.
(AFP)