Altice and SFR merging advertising arms, plan to launch targeting

Altice and French unit SFR are to merge their advertising arms this week. Altice CEO Michel Combes and SFR Media and NextRadioTV chief Alan Weill unveiled the plan at a press dinner in Paris at the end of last week.

Sophie Vatelot, deputy director in charge of Altice Media Publicité will take on responsibility for the activities of SFR Régie, reporting to Pierre-Henry Médan, director of SFR Group’s subsidiaries.

Later in the year the pair will form a single board to manage advertising across both Altice and SFR.

Combes and Weill also said that they planned to develop targeted advertising services for IPTV boxes later this year in the expectation that legislation would be put in place after this summer’s general election to permit this.

The BFM Paris channel will be the first to offer targeted advertising on a trial basis this summer using SFR’s TV boxes.