TF1 targets European free streaming lead
June 30, 2023
From Pascale Paoli-Lebailly in Paris
Following the closure of French SVoD service Salto, commercial broadcaster TF1 Group has revealed plans to accelerate into free streaming and become a francophone leader in terms of family events and news, without abandoning the TV screen.
CEO Rodolphe Belmer confirmed his ambitions for the MyTF1 platform at a press conference in Paris revealing the 2023-2024 line-up, launching TF1’s new collective slogan, ‘TF1, Les Français ensemble’.
“A leading media is the meeting between a technological project, a cultural project and an editorial one,” declared Bellmer. TF1 is accelerating in free streaming, we’re currently working to boost the development of an offering combining great family properties and content events ».
In doing so, the group is aiming to maintain viewer loyalty as well as attracting more younger individuals to its linear and non-linear offering.
This strategy is mostly based on drama which is popular with TF1 viewers as well as the most requested genre in the digital environment.
A series such as HPI has even become a totemic phenomenon, garnering ten million viewers in France, with a ready-made sale into a hundred countries and a format adapted in Greece and soon in the US market.
The free streaming priority initiated by Belmer follows the aborted merger with M6 which was set to create to a French giant able to compete with platforms such as Netflix.
TF1’s strategy is also to work with SVoD platforms in terms of original production, so as to develop its own streaming platform.
Accordingly, the channel has announced that the 8 x 52’’ drama adaptation of manga Cat’s Eyes, published in the eighties, will be produced by French company Big Band Story in partnership with Prime Video.
After previous cooperation between TF1 and Netflix, this is the first collaboration with the Amazon service. TF1 will have the first linear broadcast window, as well as a catch-up TV period before the show is available on Prime Video.