Canal+ axes three thematic channels

French pay TV operator Canal+ is to close three of its thematic channels – youth-oriented Jimmy, culinary channel Cuisine+ and home improvement channel Maison+.

The three channels will disappear from the Canalsat bouquet in June next year.

The move marks the end of the road for Jimmy, a channel created by Canal+ in 1990 to target adolescents that aired a mix of popular US and UK comedies and series. The service has already been dropped last year from the offerings of third-party distributors including Numericable, Orange and Free.

According to French press reports, the budgetary resources freed up by the closure of the three channels will be redeployed to support the development of kids channels Piwi+ and Télétoon+ as well as comedy channel Comédie+ and factual channel Planète+.

According to audience research group Médiamétrie’s latest study, Jimmy attracted an audience of 2.59 million a month, while Cuisine+ and Maison+ attracted 2.56 million and 2.02 million respectively, each representing less than 0.1% of the available audience.

The closure will be the latest in a series of pay TV channel closures in France. TF1 and M6 joint venture TF6 will disappear from French screens by the end of this year, while news channel LCI, backed by TF1, is also set to disappear in its current form following the broadcaster’s failure to win approval for a migration to the country’s free-to-air digital-terrestrial platform.