Vivendi (EPA: VIV) may not be able be able to agree a price to offload its 20 percent stake in the NBCU JV—but at home, the French multimedia group has no doubts about plans to grow its domestic TV empire.

On Monday the company announced a deal to buy the 9.9 percent of shares in its French pay-TV operator Canal+ that are owned by rival TF1; the price: €744 million (£670 million; $1.11 billion).

At the same time, it’s buying the 5.1 percent owned by M6. Vivendi owns 100 percent of the Canal+ parent group but owns only a proportion of its French division: both deals would see its ownership stake upped to 80 percent. Vivendi had planned to focus on domestic TV affairs while planning its NBCU exit.

Meanwhile, the saga of Vivendi’s NBCU stake drags on: WSJ reports, citing sources, that Vivendi’s preferred price differs from that being offered by JV partner and 80 percent NBCU owner General Electric (NYSE: GE) by “hundreds of millions of dollars”—GE is reportedly offering around $5 billion. GE needs Vivendi’s agreement before a planned merger with cable operator Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) can take place. Bloomberg reports that GE is leaning towards agreeing to an IPO to quickly let Vivendi sell its shares.

Media deal watchers will feel they’ve heard this before from the players in this merry-go-round deal, but Vivendi CFO Phillipe Capron told a conference last week (via Reuters) that the company does want to sell to give itself more headroom and declared: “We have never been closer to the end of this story.”

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