The president of the French public audiovisual group mentioned the idea during a board of directors.
A BBC considering going all-digital in 10 years? Mentioned last week by its general manager Tim Davie, the proposal did not fail to agitate the staffs of the French audiovisual groups. Especially France Televisions. According to our information, during a board meeting held on Tuesday, Delphine Ernotte spoke at length on this subject, indicating that she was perfectly in line with the BBC’s strategic plan.
The president of the group joins, for example, her British counterpart on the additional resources that must be freed up in order to build a powerful online offer. Recalling that the France.TV platform already reached every month “more French than Netflix or Disney+», she indicated that France Télévisions was going to accelerate further. “By 2024, our goal is to double the coverage of France.tv. We will then reach more French people through our platform than through our traditional branches. It’s a total change of paradigm and model, which already exists in some northern European countries.“.
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Explosive subject
Tim Davie’s idea of bringing together all of the BBC’s offers under a single brand is also an ambition supported by France Télévisions. Its president recalled that she had been campaigning since 2020 for the creation of a common platform for all public broadcasting, called France Médias +. “The public service today is 6 brands, 6 platforms, again double or triple the number of websites… Our horizon line is the grouping to increase our power“, she said.
There remains the explosive subject of the abandonment of traditional television channels, which we must prepare for, according to the director general of the BBC. Here again, Delphine Ernotte adopts the same point of view as her counterpart across the Channel. Admittedly, the leader believes that the time has not come to put a final cross on linear distribution. “The use of live television remains ultra-dominant. I do not believe that a Leclerc or a Carrefour would give up its hypermarkets today to bet everything on the drive, under the pretext that the latter is growing faster…“. The power of linear chains further constitutes “a huge advantage to promote our platforms“, according to her. Not to mention that for some French people, especially in rural areas, DTT remains the only means of access to TV content. It prevents, “in 10 years, TV media will have to make major strategic choices on the way their content is broadcast“, she said.
Like the BBC, France Télévisions therefore aims to go all-digital. Not necessarily tomorrow, the linear channels still being very watched. The public audiovisual group prefers to actively prepare for it today. Act, rather than suffer…