French broadcaster M6 Group has struck a sub-licensing deal with the country’s pay-TV heavyweight BeIN to showcase free-to-air coverage of the showpiece final of the Africa Cup of Nations.
The January 18 final will be broadcast simultaneously on BeIN’s own pay-TV service and on M6-owned linear channels, which will be either the titular M6 or entertainment-focused W9 network.
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BeIN, the competition’s French media rights partner, will retain exclusive coverage rights for tonight’s semi-finals – Senegal vs Egypt and Nigeria vs Morocco – as well as the January 17 3rd placed playoff, which will be contested by the two losing semi-finalists.
BeIN has held the rights to AFCON since the 2008 edition, and regularly sublicenses out final coverage.
Given the high numbers of African diaspora in France, the final is set to be a major viewership draw in France, especially if host country Morocco and/or Senegal (both former colonies/protectorates of France with Francophone populations and significant migration to France) advance through the semi-finals.
Back in June 2025, M6 drew 8.7 million viewers for Paris Saint-Germain’s victory in Eruope’s elite UEFA Champions League final, and although that game should not be used as a benchmark for the AFCON final (it featured a French club team rather than a foreign national team for one) it remains illustrative of the reach that the broadcaster can command when airing showpiece games.
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By GlobalDataPerhaps more relevant would be TF1’s free-to-air coverage of the 2019 AFCON final between Algeria and Senegal, which drew 1.6 million on TF1’s TMC channel, a 10.1% audience share.
Thus far, BeIN’s solo coverage of AFCON has fared well, and the bumper round of quarter-final ties helped to secure the broadcaster two of its best-ever viewership tallies for the tournament.
Morocco’s 2-0 defeat of Cameroon, which took place on January 9, and Nigeria’s 2-0 victory over Algeria the following day both performed well, owing to the high-quality displays of both winning teams, as well as (likely) the interest of French-Diaspora Moroccans, Cameroonians, and Algerians.
Morocco vs Cameroon drew a viewership average of 641,000 on the channel, peaking at 784,000, which at the time was the highest ever figure for a BeIN AFCON broadcast.
Nigeria vs Algeria performed similarly, if a bit poorer, averaging 480,000 with a peak of 708,000, which was still enough to make it the second-most watched AFCON game since BeIN secured the rights.
