Numericable

From the end of World War II until May 1981, when the French Socialist Party came swept to power with the election of François Mitterrand, the state held a monopoly on the production and distribution of audiovisual programmes on French territory. On July 29, 1982, Law 82-652 abolished the state monopoly and created both a Council and High Authority on Audiovisual Communication to oversee the liberalisation of the French audiovisual sector.[6]

In 1982, the National Cable Plan was approved, with the ambitious goal of connecting one million households within five years and using the most advanced techniques of the time, including fiber-optic technology. In order to finance the project, a public-private partnership was put in place that allowed private operators to utilise the networks set up by France Telecom to commercial ends.[7]

Regulations provided for highly favourable concessions that were awarded to private operators (up to 99 years). Water and Sewage Treatment service providers often diversified into the cable market and used their close ties with local municipalities to win concessions.[8]

On June 6, 1985, the group Lyonnaise des eaux created the company Paris Câble, which would later become Lyonnaise Câble, Noos, and Numericable.[9] Officially launched on November 25, 1986, the launch of the National Cable Plan marked the start of the commercial use of cable networks in Paris. In 1996, 16 regional operators merged into a national player, Lyonnaise Communications.

In May 2000, Noos became the brand name of Lyonnaise Communications in a move that was accompanied by the harmonization of Lyonnaise’s cable networks.[10] Following its national expansion strategy, Noos took over the cable television assets of French group NTL in November 2001.

At this point, three cable operators were still in business: France Telecom, NC Numericable and Noos.

NC Numericable and Noos merged in 2006.[11] One year later, the brand Noos disappeared and was replaced by the name Numericable.[12] A new logo and marketing campaign was subsequently launched in August 2007. For the first time, all of French cable networks were technically owned by one company.

In 2005, Numéricâble launched its activities in the Antilles. In 2008, Le Câble Numericable bought WSG and MTVC, the major cable operators in Guadeloupe and Martinique.

In 2007, Numericable announced that it had signed a deal with Bouygues Telecom to use its mobile network, thereby opening the way to offering mobile services to its customers. The company subsequently launched the service in 2008.[13]

Numericable was launched as a mobile virtual network operator on May 16, 2011, advertising an ‘unlimited’ offer and highlighting its competitiveness. To accompany its business development, Numericable launched a ‘triple play’ internet offer, costing four euros per month, on September 13, 2011.[14][15]

In order to compete with new offers launched by rival company Free, Numericable launched an ‘unlimited’ mobile phone plan costing €19.99 per month on January 23, 2012, contributing to the company’s general move to lower prices.[16]

To compete with competitors’ Internet terminals, Numericable announced the launch of ‘Box by Numericable’, a product that is both modem and receiver. According to the operator, the box allows access to 300 thematic channels, to the Internet and to make an unlimited number of calls to landlines and mobile numbers in France, as well as to several international locations. For the eligible clients, the Box allows a high-speed internet connection (up to 200 megabytes/second) as long as it is linked to a local network. The Box also gives its clients access to videos on-demand (VOD) and multiple social network applications, such as Twitter.[17]

While the name of the group was Numericable, the management remained legally administered by two separate companies: Numericable SAS and NC Numericable (formerly known as Noos). Ypso Holding S.à r.l. was a holding company controlling Numericable companies, owned by the American Carlyle Group (35%), the British private equity firm Cinven (35%) and Altice, a Luxembourg-based cable operator (30%). On 2 August 2013, Numericable Group SA was formed as the parent company of Numericable group companies.[18]

On September 19, 2013, Numericable Group announced the launch of a legal and financial process aimed at the company’s initial public offering on the Paris stock exchange, regulated by NYSE Euronext. The declared objective was to obtain new financial resources to invest in French fiber-optic development.[19] The shares were offered on 7 November 2013.[20]

In November 2014, France’s competition watchdog approved a deal for Numericable to acquire Virgin Mobile France for €325 million.[21]

SFR launched its fiber packages in November 2014, using the Numericable network and TV bouquets. In France, the cable networks had an exemption from exclusivity of TV channels. Following the launch of the SFR by Numericable offers, Canalsat has withdrawn the Numericable exemption, which has made it lose certain channels such as Eurosport, Disney XD, Disney Junior, Disney Cinema, Comédie+, Planète+, Télétoon+ and Piwi+.

Altice launched its SVOD service, Zive, on 17 November 2015. It was renamed SFR Play in late 2016.

Altice acquired the rights of many sports competitions (Premier League, Liga NOS, Champions League) to form its SFR Sport bouquet. Altice signed an exclusive agreement with Discovery and NBCUniversal in December 2016. The premium movies and series TV channel Altice Studio was launched on 22 August 2017.

Numericable was rebranded as SFR in Belgium and Luxembourg on 15 February 2016, with its launch of Zive.

In December 2016, Altice announced to sell SFR Belux to Telenet for €400 million.[22]

The Numericable and SFR channels numbering were merged on 22 August 2017, and in 2019, the Numericable exclusive channels (MTV, Nickelodeon, Série Club, Cartoon Network...) were added to SFR ADSL offer. The brand Numericable disappeared.