Canal Plus Company

Continuing the management upheaval at Vivendi Universal's pay-TV operation, Canal Plus Group Chairman Xavier Couture is expected to resign this week, sources close to the company said. Vivendi Chief Executive Jean-Rene Fourtou was said to be disappointed with Canal Plus' continued losses and had clashed with Couture, who was appointed last year after former Vivendi CEO Jean-Marie Messier fired Pierre Lescure.

Vivendi Universal on Thursday replaced the head of its Canal Plus Group and abandoned plans for a public stock offering of the troubled pay-TV company, putting added pressure on chief Jean-Rene Fourtou to raise cash by selling other assets, including some of its U.S. entertainment holdings. As expected, Vivendi named Bertrand Meheut, the No.

Warner Bros. and Canal Plus, Europe's leading pay-TV concern, have formed a joint venture to finance and distribute four to six movies a year over the next five years. Warner will handle the worldwide distribution of the films in all media, including theatrical, television and video, except in Germany and France, where Canal Plus is based. Heading the entity will be producer Steven D. Reuther, whose movie credits include "The Rainmaker," "Face Off," "The Client" and "Pretty Woman."

Expanding its presence in the worldwide ticketing business, Los Angeles-based Ticketmaster has agreed to buy a 66% stake in MC France-Ticket, a unit of Canal Plus. The Paris-based company sells about a half-million event tickets per year in France. MC France would be renamed Ticketmaster as part of the transaction, which sources valued in the low seven figures.

Generale des Eaux has offered $5.6 billion to buy Havas, France's biggest media company, and Havas Chief Executive Pierre Dauzier has been replaced. Generale des Eaux, a water and sewerage utility placing increased emphasis on communications, said it would move quickly to cut costs at Havas, the main shareholder of Europe's biggest pay-television company Canal Plus and publisher of weekly news magazine L'Express.

Canal Plus, Europe's largest pay television operator, said Wednesday that it may bid on the film assets of PolyGram to ensure a European competitor to Hollywood's major studios. European producers are alarmed at what might happen to the film unit if Seagram Co.'s Universal Studios Inc., one of the major U.S.-based entertainment companies, swallows up PolyGram, a European entertainment conglomerate, in a deal expected to be formally announced as early as today.

The turmoil over Europe's fast-emerging, multibillion-dollar digital pay TV market is intensifying. In recent weeks, media companies have announced programming packages that will bring digital pay TV to Germany, Scandinavia and the Benelux countries--Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg--for the first time this summer. At the same time, an alliance of media giants aimed at the Continent's large and lucrative German market has all but collapsed due to internal differences.

Rupert Murdoch on Wednesday teamed up with French companies Canal Plus and Germany's Bertelsmann in a new alliance to provide satellite pay TV in Europe. The deal strengthens the hand of Bertelsmann and Canal Plus in their battle for the German television market and answers the question of whom Murdoch would link up with in European pay television. Murdoch's News Corp.

French pay TV company Canal Plus, in an apparent preemptive move to make sure it gets its hands on the film library of ailing Carolco Pictures, raised its bid for the library to a steep $58 million, prompting Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. to withdraw its offer for most of Carolco's assets. The bidding drama took place Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Los Angeles, after Canal Plus initially came in with a $47-million bid for Carolco's library.

New Carolco Library Bid Sends Fox Running: French pay TV company Canal Plus, in an apparent preemptive move to make sure it gets its hands on the film library of ailing Carolco Pictures, raised its bid for the library to $58 million, prompting Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. to withdraw its offer for most of Carolco's assets.