TV5MONDE’s Patrice Courtaban

Founded in 1984, TV5MONDE today reaches more than 400 million homes in 211 countries. The global general-entertainment service draws content from partner French-language broadcasters in France, Canada, Switzerland, Belgium and, starting in September, Monaco. It offers French ex-pats and Francophiles a programming mix that includes movies, news, sports, TV series and documentaries. To better serve its viewers, TV5MONDE has also launched targeted linear channels and the streaming service TV5MONDEplus. Patrice Courtaban, the executive VP of growth and business development at TV5MONDE and CEO of TV5MONDE USA, is responsible for identifying growth and revenue opportunities worldwide. He talks to World Screen about diversifying feeds across the globe, benefiting from technological advances, tracking changing viewing habits and broadening programming choices with TV5MONDEplus.

WS: How do you view today’s content market?
COURTABAN: Let me start with a bit of history. Next year, we will be celebrating our 40th anniversary. Throughout the decades, we’ve seen a lot of transformations in the industry. But what’s interesting is that since its inception, the company’s growth has always been based on new technologies. When we started in 1984, it was the very beginning of satellite, and nobody thought this would be anything for TV. We had five TV stations. That’s why we said, Let’s call ourselves TV5. We put the feed on satellite. Satellite grew in the ’80s and then started to serve cable systems as well. We expanded on cable and digital cable, and as technology developed, we also expanded geographically. We started in Europe and eventually reached Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, the U.S. and the AsiaPac region. Today, we are one of the most widely distributed TV networks worldwide. Currently, we reach 422 million homes in 211 countries. If you compare us to some of the streamers, these are high numbers, but we need to maintain this.

We have a very good reach, so going back to how I view the content market today: for us, it’s always been a region-by-region approach because not all markets are evolving at the same speed. In India, for example, the low-price cable bundle is still the most popular and growing quickly. In Europe and the U.S., there’s too much content available. Many viewers spend five or six hours a day watching what they like. So, the main challenge is to have content, put the message out there, reach your audience and work to keep your audience. Because if someone comes to your service for a month or a week and then goes somewhere else, no one wins. But we’re fortunate. Globally, our viewers spend, on average, more than two hours per day watching one of the TV5MONDE services. This has remained stable through the last five years, even though the volume of content has increased everywhere.

The reason why people come to TV5MONDE is the quality of our content. We offer a different perspective on the news, and that’s thanks to all the partners that we have. We are unique because we’re not the voice of one country. We represent France, Canada, Switzerland, Belgium and, starting in September, Monaco. I think people really appreciate that when they watch TV5MONDE news. People also watch because of the variety of the offering. We’re one of the only international general-entertainment channels because most international TV networks have a singular theme, for example, either news or children’s programming. In a way, it’s easier because you have one feed, you show news 24/7, and you can cover the world. But as a general-entertainment network, you have to separate the feeds and adjust the content to appeal to the local audience. People want to watch a certain program at a certain time of day, and that takes a lot of work because you need to understand the different local audiences across the globe. We’ve developed significant expertise in understanding all the markets we are in and how to schedule what people expect locally. All of this has helped retain viewers, and today, they are still coming to TV5MONDE for these reasons: quality, a different perspective on the news and variety of content.

WS: Tell us about the growth of the offerings in the U.S.
COURTABAN: In the U.S. today, we have six services, plus the streaming platform TV5MONDEplus. There are challenges; traditional pay TV is declining. We’re doing very well with virtual MVPDs, and I believe we’ll continue to expand. Virtual MVPDs started very strongly with domestic offerings, all the top American brands that people want to watch at a better price [than traditional cable], and no need to commit for one year. But now, the virtual MVPDs are starting to reach a plateau, so I think they’re looking at new opportunities. [And we are looking to grow our] customer base in the U.S. We’re already on Sling TV and fuboTV, and we’re planning to add more deals this year.

We also have a streaming option, TV5MONDEplus. It launched in 2020, and in the U.S., in 2021. This is a high priority for the company. We have almost 6,000 titles today, with all the TV5MONDE categories represented: movies, TV series, lifestyle programs and kids’ programming. TV5MONDEplus comes with your subscription, so we’re offering more content to our loyal viewers. We didn’t raise the price, and it’s a great retention tool for us. Even people who still have cable can also have a streaming alternative just by keeping their TV5MONDE subscription. We have signed deals with all the major TV device manufacturers, including Samsung, LG Electronics and Roku. Although traditional pay TV is decreasing, we’re still seeing opportunities with the virtual MVPDs, and hopefully, TV5MONDEplus will help us reach a new audience through streaming.

WS: Is there a difference between what viewers watch on linear and what they watch on TV5MONDEplus?
COURTABAN: Yes. It’s very interesting. For example, on TV5MONDEplus, we can experiment with certain content because we have much more space to do so. One example is our Canadian TV series. On TV5MONDE linear, we only have 24 hours a day, and with all the content we get, maybe we have one Canadian TV series every week. They’ve done well in the U.S., and some of these shows have become hit TV series on Netflix. So, we have seven seasons of Unité 9 doing very well. We have a Swiss TV series that is doing amazingly, a detective series called Wilder. Another Swiss TV series that did very well last year was Banking District, about the world of finance in Geneva.

Another difference between TV5MONDE linear and TV5MONDEplus is that streaming offers more opportunities for content discovery. On linear, people stick with the news and movies. But on the streaming platform, we have all these great TV shows. We also had a very popular TV series from Africa, Wara, a political thriller from Senegal, and we’re going to launch season two. But that’s another example of showing content that people won’t find anywhere else. And on TV5MONDEplus, we subtitle in six languages.

On TV5MONDEplus, we also launch originals. We’re not at the level where we can produce an original TV series, but we’ve done different things with documentaries. Last year, we released a documentary called Jean-Michel Basquiat, L’Afrique au cœur (Africa at Heart). It brought a new perspective on Basquiat’s life and his connection with African artists and how he inspired a whole new generation of them. That did very well in the U.S. and other parts of the world. We had another documentary about the French designer Franck Sorbier. He may not be as well-known as some other designers, but he is a master of fabrics, and his creations are very visual. Another example, and we were surprised by the success of this show, has been a five-part miniseries we released at the beginning of 2023 called From One Language to Another. We followed a Ukrainian family that ended up in a small, beautiful village in southwest France. They don’t know the French language, but the overall tone is positive as they experience this new lifestyle and learn a lot about French culture.

WS: Are you following a similar programming strategy in other parts of the world?
COURTABAN: TV5MONDEplus is global, and outside the U.S., it’s an AVOD platform. Every region has its challenges. We still have strong growth in Latin America, but it depends on each country’s economic situation and inflation. We still follow our pay-TV model, but right now, with all the economic issues, it’s hard to maintain the revenue stream.

One region where we’re still growing is AsiaPac, where distribution continues increasing in many markets. In India, for example, 60 percent of all distribution—about 70 million homes—is mostly on local cable. We have more than 2 million viewers per week and are still growing. We’re trying to expand subtitling because we’ve seen that with subtitles, we can reach a much wider audience. Today, we subtitle in 13 languages, including English, Spanish, Portuguese, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese in the AsiaPac region.

The U.S. and Western Europe are more mature markets. It’s hard to grow distribution because we already have agreements with all the operators. But we’re always looking at new opportunities.

The biggest opportunity is in Africa, where we have our highest audience worldwide. It’s very important for us because, by 2050, based on the latest OIF survey, about three-quarters of French speakers will be in Africa, and about 90 percent of the young French speakers will be in Africa as well. Today, our highest ratings in one single country are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where we have about 13 million viewers per week. That’s why we also launched TiVi5MONDE in Africa. It started in the U.S., and six years later, we decided to launch the kids’ network in Africa and increase local production for children. Today, we have more than 10 million viewers a week. One African kid out of two watches TiVi5MONDE over there. In the entire region, we’re among the top four kids’ networks.

So far, it’s doing very well, but we have to know the market because today, in Africa, the main challenge for streaming is the cost of internet access. We live in places where we have unlimited data. But in many places, they still have to pay for data. In some countries, when you stream a film, it is a significant cost just to stream that movie. So, we have cultural centers called Maisons TV5MONDE in Africa, and kids come and watch in a very nice environment, maybe 20 or 30 kids at a time.

In Africa, possibly even more than anywhere else in the world, viewers watch news because they are very open to hearing points of view from other countries. So, in that regard, we play a very important role in the region with our newscasts. We also offer the Basketball Africa League and broadcast the Olympic Games. It’s the only channel where we have the rights to the Olympic Games. We do our own commentary just for the African region.

WS: What has been the most impactful change in the industry since you started your career?
COURTABAN: Every major technological change has brought new opportunities. For many years, we have done deals by region. We’ve dealt with the local distributors. We have gained expertise. Now we have to look at global opportunities. A recent example would be the deal we signed with Roku last year. We said, What is your global distribution? Where can we help each other? Where could TV5MONDE be a driver for Roku? What are the Roku expansion plans for every region? Having these kinds of partnerships [can bring change]. In the industry at large, the most significant change has been the growth of the streaming offering that today is so big.

WS: Of all you have accomplished, what are you most proud of?
COURTABAN: Growing the U.S. business from its inception, seeing where we are today and maintaining our place in the marketplace is one of the major projects I’ve been leading within the company. The U.S. is not an easy market. There are many things you need to understand, and you have to be willing to spend time and resources before you can see any return. Our U.S. distribution has been a great success for the company. When you are in such a crowded space with content, seeing our viewers spending about two-and-a-half hours a day on TV5MONDE, which is about 50 percent of what they watch on TV, including streaming and everything. It’s great for us and the company.

And now we also have exciting news. Starting September 1, as I said, we will get new content from TVMonaco, which will be great for the American audience. The content that TVMonaco will produce will focus on four categories: the environment—for example, the oceans and preservation—lifestyle content focusing on what’s happening on the Riviera, sports and news. There’s an appetite for the Riviera and Monaco in the U.S. But there are also things people can learn through the content we’ll be showing on the channel.