“The golden age of sport is today on Canal+”

Arrived in the Canal+ group in 2009 as a senior reporter, Thomas Sénécal (49 years old) has since climbed the ranks to become Head of Sports in 2022. This motorsport specialist is responsible for one of the two pillars of the group's content offering, the other being cinema.

LE FIGARO. – How would you summarize forty years of sport on Canal+?

Thomas SÉNÉCAL. – With the word “passion”, because it has been shared every day for forty years, with those who make sport successful on our broadcasts, that is to say our subscribers. And also the word “innovation”, because from its beginnings, Canal+ revolutionized the coverage of sport and the production of matches. Canal+ plus has also established a very strong bond with the players in sport, the champions, by treating them like heroes of cinema or series. Canal+ treated the competitions like juicy films. The channel has given its credentials to sport on today's television.

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Passion and a taste for innovation are precisely two characteristics which also illustrate the profile of Canal+ subscribers….

Of course, the subscribers are experts and I sometimes say it to our teams, they are more experts than us on certain points, on certain clubs, on certain drivers… For some, they are fans and great experts of their favorite sport. Others are more occasional, a little less close to their sport on a daily basis. So, we also have to find this way of speaking to the passionate and the less passionate. What we really do every week, every day. At the moment, for example, with European competitions, there is a need for education, because the Champions League has changed format. Same thing in Formula 1, where we experienced an explosion in audiences between 2016 and 2022. We doubled the audience, welcoming a younger, more female audience, perhaps less expert sometimes. Well, our strategy has been to welcome these new subscribers.

“The golden age of sports on Canal+ is now, it is today, it is in 2024 and in the years to come, because the catalog of rights with the exclusives that we offer to our subscribers, is unique in the world. »

Coverage of football, motor sports (F1, sailing), the Olympic Games 24/7, new documentaries… Canal+ has always been a vector of innovation in sports content. Is this still a priority? Is the legacy heavy to carry? What does he impose?

We have changed eras and dimensions in forty years but today everything goes faster, information circulates more, so expertise and precision are more necessary than ever. Canal Plus was originally a French channel, today it is a group, an international platform which has ten million subscribers in France, twenty-six million worldwide. The golden age of sports on Canal+ is now, it's today, it's in 2024 and in the years to come, because the catalog of rights with the exclusives that we offer to our subscribers , is unique in the world. There you go, this is all that symbolizes the maturity of sport on Canal Plus. Sports which, today, bring audiences to three million subscribers: motor sports, football, Rugby, golf, and then our ability also to explore new areas such as padel matches. Last Saturday, we broadcast an Elite women's rugby match. It was a first. The legacy is not heavy to carry, in the sense that it is on the contrary an encouragement to innovate and to continue to explore new areas to continue to surprise our subscribers for the next forty years.

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What are the values ​​that drive the Canal+ sports editorial team today? How do you think they have evolved over four decades?

Our key word for us in the sports editorial team is to take our subscribers into immersion, that is to say, to take care of our subscribers and also to take care of the sports that we broadcast. We must nurture our subscribers as if they were friends and family, to whom we explain things with the greatest care. And I want that at the start of a race or at the kick-off of a match, the subscriber is our twenty-first Formula 1 driver, our twelfth D1 player, our sixteenth player from a Top team 14…And he has all the necessary information, as if he was going to play the match. The stadium, the current dynamics of a club We have the chance in the sports editorial team to consider that, ultimately, we are a sports team ourselves, that is to say that we are preparing for events, we have deadlines, we have a duty to perform on D-day, at the right time…

“Sport does not like delays… Sport is experienced live, above all. »

Will sporting events remain the last anchors of linear television for viewers?

Sports competitions bring people together and can be watched as a family and live during a large number of sporting events. That’s clear, sport doesn’t like delays. Sport is experienced live, above all. Canal+ is a platform. Our documentary content is consumed more there. I'm thinking of a documentary on Victor Webanyama. It is one of the contents that is most consumed in replay, and that suits us very well. Often, it's an even younger audience who listen, who watch this content when they feel like it. That's for the live linear part, and then there's the whole additional experience. On MyCanal, which can be on digital to be in community in order to comment on an achievement, a goal or an extraordinary action. Who can be in expert mode where we go further with additional cameras, real-time rankings, data in the world of motor sports like MotoGP. Which can be, of course, on mycanal in replay, because when Charles Leclerc wins the United States Grand Prix, we can be very happy, a week later, to watch a twenty-six minute documentary on him and the see live a crazy experience by boarding a burst of the Air and Space Force, and even pilot it with a lot of composure and composure. We aired it last Sunday. With five hundred thousand live spectators watching Canal+, this is a very big score for a documentary.

What is your vision of the sport of tomorrow on screens?

The level of expertise of people who follow sports is increasingly high, since they are watered and fed with sports information. So, it will be more necessary than ever to perform live. I think that sport will be multi-media and it will be very important to think about all the people who watch a sporting event on their phones, their screens of all types in a mobile situation. I think the sport will be more feminine, too. In terms of competitions and in the editorial teams that cover them. It's not a fight, it's a challenge. The challenge is to continue to rejuvenate and ultimately allow each and everyone who is passionate about sport to feel welcomed with pedagogy and expertise.

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In the future, what will be the key success factor for sport on Canal+?

Our challenge is the role of pioneer. And we are inspired and motivated by the pioneering spirit, by the spirit of innovation, by freedom too. Canal+ dared. We are the worthy successors of these glorious predecessors. We are always pioneers when we put microphones on referees or rugby players. Occupy the space in digital where we had a billion and a half videos viewed over the season. Well there you have it, it's totally in the legacy of these forty years of sport on Canal Plus. Over the next forty years, I want to continue to be worthy of it, to continue to take risks, to dare. Obviously in our own way, with another way of telling our story. It's very important to go beyond what our subscribers expect. To offer them things they wouldn't even have imagined. With ten thousand hours of sport on the six channels. Sport 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. This is why we are convinced that the golden age of sport is today on Canal+.