Unceremoniously leaving the audiovisual landscape in the summer of 2015, Rodolphe Belmer is returning to it through the front door. Appointed CEO of TF1 in October 2022, he will become its CEO on Monday February 13, by a vote of the board of directors chaired by his predecessor, Gilles Pélisson. Wednesday at 11 am, before the Arcom, it is he who will defend the candidacy of the first private channel in France to obtain a frequency for the next ten years. An additional symbolic step in his return to the audiovisual sector, which Vincent Bolloré, who became the majority shareholder of the Canal + group, which Mr. Belmer directed, had exfiltrated seven years ago for the benefit of Maxime Saada, his deputy SO.
“He deserves the job, and the media deserves it”rejoices host and producer Maïtena Biraben, fired from Canal + a little less than a year after her former boss. “I don’t understand how it took so long for TV to call on him again”adds presenter Michel Denisot, whom Mr. Belmer had chosen to wear (2004-2013) The Big Newspaperthe flagship program of the channel’s return to favor after its years of wandering in the early 2000s.
“I’m curious to see how, while he was an exceptional guy for a pay channel, he will redeploy his talent on a free channel which must appeal to as many people as possible”abounds the producer Renaud Le Van Kim, creator of the online media Brut, of which Mr. Belmer headed the board of directors until recently.
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Praising words, commensurate with the intense euphoria that accompanied the revival of the encrypted channel, before the disillusions and humiliations definitively united animators, producers and fallen leaders. Under the impetus of Rodolphe Belmer from 2003, Canal’s free-to-air programs had regained their original luster and the channel, the desirability that generates the subscriptions essential to its activity. Rodolphe Belmer “has raised the level of demand for fiction by developing exclusive original creations”remembers a very close former collaborator − series like gearsbut also the unit television films on the Elf affair (The predators) or the French Gestapo (93 Lauriston Street) remained references.
“It was a time when the channel was very socially rooted, progressive, recalls Maïtena Biraben. Support for Ni putes ni submitted, for example, was a singular, strong choice. » The eviction of Eric Zemmour from i-Télé at the end of 2014 was another, for which the leader paid a few months later with his banishment. Out of respect for this man ” modest “few agree to return to the ordeal of his departure from Canal + with, for all baggage, the latex puppet of “PPD” under his arm.
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