International sales of French television programmes fell to €164.2M ($190.7M) in 2025, a 21.6% drop from 2024 and a ten-year low, according to figures from Unifrance and French regulator the CNC. The decline reflects a "perfect storm" facing French distributors: falling TV advertising revenue has left broadcasters with less money to commission or acquire content, while streaming platforms' SVOD and AVOD markets are failing to compensate for the shortfall, forcing sales houses to chase more numerous but smaller deals.

The figures, unveiled at the Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Le Havre, showed steep falls across most genres: co-production investment dropped 18.7% to €87.7M, international pre-sales plunged 59.3% to €30.7M, drama sales fell 27% to €54.9M, and animation sales collapsed 30.3% to €32.2M. Documentaries proved the most resilient, slipping just 2.7% to €43.1M. Western Europe remains the largest buyer of French content, followed by North America, while sales to Asia and Latin America hit record lows. Unifrance president Gilles Pélisson also criticised the lack of transparency from streaming platforms, which do not share sales data, warning this hampers producers' ability to fund high-quality, independent work.