TF1 to close lifestyle Stylia
September 29, 2014
From Pascale Paoli-Lebailly in Paris
TF1 is to close Stylia, the female lifestyle pay-TV channel, launched in 1996 as documentary-oriented Odyssée before being repositioned and renamed in 2010.
According to BFM Business website, after the closure of channel TF6, and the pending shutdown of news channel LCI at year end, TF1 is making further cost cuttings with Stylia. Twenty per cent of Stylia belongs to Discovery Communications.
Revenues suffered as the channel is no longer carried on Canalsat. Since 2011, Stylia has only been transmitted on cable Numericable and IPTV platforms Orange, SFR, and Bouygues and since 2012 it has lost one third of its revenues.
Audience share also fell from 0.3 per cent in 2008 to 0.1 per cent, while the number of viewers has fallen sixfold since 2010.
Stylia employs 16 people but the closure should have no social impact says internal source as the teams also work for TF1’s other pay-TV channels Histoire and Ushuaia TV.
If confirmed, redundancies at LCI news channel will on the contrary hit 150 persons.