Netflix & Amazon are Now French TV Channels — What?!
Inside the shocking pacts, why Disney’s dancing with ITV, and what YouTube has to do with it: ‘Tech companies don’t do anything to be nice’
I cover int’l TV from London. I wrote about how sports doc producers navigate a “brutal” landscape, why Amazon is fumbling its U.K. business and the British company behind Netflix’s Adolescence. I’m at manori@theankler.com
“Partnerships” and “collaborations” for survival have been proposed and chewed over more times than I can count in the last 24 months, but a hefty streamer-broadcaster cross-carriage deal out of Europe wasn’t on anyone’s bingo card back in January — let alone three such pacts in the span of one month.
First came the mega deal: Netflix and French commercial broadcaster TF1’s shock distribution partnership in June — which in summer 2026 will see TF1’s live channels (and on-demand content from streamer TF1+) freely available to Netflix members in France as part of their subscription. Unveiled by Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters and TF1 CEO Rodolphe Belmer at Cannes Lions, the tie-up has launched myriad LinkedIn missives about Netflix’s potential future as a linear aggregator.
That the deal happened in France’s tightly regulated market was eyebrow-raising. That, a fortnight later, we saw another pact out of France — public broadcaster France Télévisions partnering with Amazon Prime Video to share its live channels and 20,000-title catalogue with the global streamer (effective immediately!) — was game-changing.
Still, all is not hunky dory within the French production sector, where stakeholders sound baffled by what these deals mean for windowing and future deal-making with the streamers. More on that spicy discord below.
The partnership contagion then headed north to England, where Disney and British commercial broadcaster ITV struck a landmark agreement to share a selection of each other’s original titles on Disney+ and streamer ITVX. The deal went live July 16 and sees promotional units on each service featuring 12 shows. On ITVX, you can watch the first seasons of Andor, Tracker, Atlanta and — yes — even Desperate Housewives, while Disney+’s “A Taste of ITVX” features first seasons of Love Island All Stars, Mr Bates vs the Post Office and Grantchester.
There are nuances that make each of the three deals unique.
Today’s column — my last before I take a few months’ maternity leave! — I take you inside the streaming plot twist shaking up Europe, including:
Netflix’s real game in Europe: Is the deal about churn, ads, or goodwill with local audiences?
My interview with Enders Analysis’ François Godard about what to read between the lines
The next markets to fall: Germany and Spain and the role of HBO Max
What sports rights have to do with it
Why advertisers could be the biggest winners
How Disney+ and Prime Video’s “softer” deals reveal different strategy
Why broadcasters would rather cozy up to Netflix over YouTube
What this means for producers, compensation and financing
How these deals might help streamers dodge Europe’s content quotas
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