2024 will go down in history. For the first time since its privatization in 1987, TF1 was pushed to its limits and, during an Olympic and Paralympic summer in Paris, was forced to cede the leadership position to France 2. But with a strong schedule more exploited – since the arrival of “Bonjour!” in the morning and “More beautiful life, even more beautiful” in the afternoon on January 8 – the front page maintained a sufficiently high rate the rest of the year to exceed its 2023 audience share. Sport, programs, platform… Xavier Gandon, director of the group's TV and digital channels, made for Puremédias the assessment of 2024 and looks forward to 2025, the year which will mark the arrival of a new soap opera co-financed with Netflix and the 50 years of existence of TF1.
Comments collected by Ludovic Galtier Lloret
Analyzing the 2024 audiences, sport and in particular the Olympics dominated the year. It's historic: France 2 was the leading channel in France ahead of TF1 in July and August. Did this match your projections?
With the fierce competition of this event, we knew that the year was going to be very competitive and that the Paris Olympics were going to be a big event. We therefore approached this year with caution. Now that 2024 is ending, we are even more happy and satisfied with our audiences since – it's a nice symbol – TF1 will succeed in progressing from one year to the next. Despite the Olympics and the Paralympic Games, we will end the year with 18.7% market share compared to 18.6% in 2023, a year already driven by the Rugby World Cup.
How do you explain it?
TF1 audiences are experiencing a very positive trend. The arrivals of “Hello!” and “More beautiful life, even more beautiful” in January 2024 contribute to this. What we can also notice is that the very strong performances of the Olympic Games on France 2 did not cause a halo effect, that is to say that viewers returned to TF1 at the start of the school year. All genres are on a good trend, starting with our news editions, whose differences at 8 p.m. climb to 1.5 or even 2 million viewers with our main competitor. On the fiction side, the success of “HPI” continues and is accompanied by those of the new releases, “Cat's Eyes”, “Le nounou” and “Brocéliande” in the lead. We are finally maintaining good health on the commercial targets of our entertainment: “Star Academy”, “Koh-Lanta”, the return of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” or our events. We saw it again with Miss France.
“The best sports audience this year was not an event from the Olympic Games but the Spain-France match. This therefore puts things into perspective”
Xavier Gandon
Sport totals 37 places in the top 100 audiences for 2024. Can the success of rugby this fall convince you to diversify your sports offering, especially focused on Football, and why not position yourself in the VI Nations tournament?
Football remains a very important element for TF1. We have our contract and our partnership with the Blues, whose matches we broadcast and which have again been great successes with 5 to 6 million viewers. The Euro football achieved excellent scores: the best sports audience this year was not an event from the Olympic Games but the Spain-France match (the first two places in the top 100 are occupied by the ceremonies of opening and closing of the Olympic Games, editor's note). This therefore allows us to put things into perspective. What I can say is that the sports line-up will be similar for women and men. And besides, in 2025, the two sporting events will be women's with the Euro football and the Rugby World Cup in England.
With one year of hindsight, what is your assessment of the arrival of “Hello!” in the grid?
It was a real challenge to launch a morning show, especially since until January 8, 2024, the slot was occupied by youth programs. We had to build consumption habits. We started at around 8.5% market share. To see that week after week, month after month, Bruce and his team manage to gain points and that this objective that we had set ourselves of 10%, we are in the process of achieving on weekly and monthly averages. encourages you to continue even more.
Are there other projects that you could open at TF1 in your schedule today? Other boxes to invest in?
No, in any case, I don't think like that about something as major as “Hello!”. Today, we are generally satisfied with our grid. Above all, we will work to make the meetings sustainable and ensure that they are ever more attractive to viewers.
“'More beautiful life, even more beautiful' has become our third most successful program on TF1+, behind 'Here it all begins' and 'Tomorrow belongs to us'”
Xavier Gandon
2024 marked the arrival in your schedule of a third series (“More beautiful life, even more beautiful), before a 4th in 2025 (“All for light”). Why is it strategically interesting to multiply the gender ?
The daily soap opera is a genre that is at the heart of our strategy today, that is to say, investing in and offering programs that will be capable of generating success on linear and streaming. This is true for fiction series like “Tomorrow Belongs to Us” and “Here It All Begins”, it is also true for reality series like “Star Academy”. Offering more programs of this type is the evolution that we wish to give to our line-up. “More beautiful life, even more beautiful” proves us right: it is a great linear success – with double broadcast on TF1 and on TFX – which has established itself as our third most successful program on TF1+, behind “ Here it all begins” and “Tomorrow belongs to us”. What is also interesting to see is that today for targets under 50, we can have consumption of our soap operas on TF1+ which can represent up to more than 30% of total consumption. Our new portfolio of programs must therefore be adapted to our new strategic model which allows both audience growth on TF1 and very strong progress on TF1+.
You announced a fourth series which will arrive soon in 2025 on TF1. Aren't you losing out on this by releasing the episodes five days after Netflix?
It is a different economic model since the series is co-financed. We are very proud to partner with the world leader in paid streaming. I think that Netflix also really wanted to be linked to TF1 and Newen (production company for TF1 soap operas, editor's note) on this know-how of the daily soap opera. Obviously, it's not the same as when you finance a project alone, but we are convinced that visibility on paid platforms can generate different audiences which will be able to add up at a given moment.
“The exhibition of a program on an SVOD platform is not necessarily incompatible with AVOD exploitation”
Xavier Gandon
Are you going for the long term or is it more of an experiment?
For now, a burst of 90 episodes is planned.
With what place in the TF1 schedule? At 5:30 p.m.?
We're thinking about it.
Could these alliances with paid streaming platforms that are sometimes presented as your partners, sometimes as your TV adversaries, become the priority funding model?
These virtuous associations have existed for several years. I'm thinking of “The Agency”, a project on which we are associated with Netflix and which we broadcast on TMC. We launched season 5 to over 1 million viewers. The series progresses from year to year, which does not prevent it from being a great success on Netflix. It thus proves that exposure on an SVOD platform is not necessarily incompatible with AVOD exploitation (video on demand with advertising, editor's note) on TF1+. There is no cannibalization.
“Unlike soap operas, games remain with a predominantly linear DNA, this is not our strategy”
Xavier Gandon
Soap operas are multiplying on TF1, to the detriment of the daily game which has long been a strong component of your access schedule and some of which are being reborn among the competition…
Let's not forget that we offer the most successful game on TF1 with “Les 12 coups de midi”. We see that soap opera programs are over-consumed in streaming. This is less the case for games which are programs which remain with a very predominantly linear DNA. In prime time access, we prefer to offer programs that are at the heart of our strategy, narrative offerings with a serial nature like Star Academy.
And how do you perceive this strong comeback of the game among the competition?
I'm not going to pass judgment on what our competitors are doing, but in any case it's not our strategy.
“We must not forget that last year, the explosion in the popularity of Pierre and Héléna at the 'Star Academy' took place in the very last weeks”
Xavier Gandon
“Star Academy” returned for a 3rd consecutive season this year. Do you, like us, observe that it creates less of an event than last season?
I don't agree with you. We are very happy with this new season, with this group of young artists in the making who are revealing themselves. This is also not reflected in the audiences which, on the linear and on TF1+, are rather up slightly on the same date compared to last year. I think we should not forget that last year, the explosion in the popularity of the final four, I am thinking of Pierre and Héléna, took place in the very last weeks.
Will the show return in 2025?
We would be delighted to see a new season of “Star Academy” but it is a little early to answer that. Let's already finish this season which is a great success.
Another event is looming, it's “Dancing with the Stars”. Last season was associated with a clash between Natasha St-Pier and Inès Reg. Do you think that this event has damaged the image of this family program?
No, I don't think so, what's important is that on the air, nothing particular happened from that point of view. It was a very good season with intensity in the competition, superb dance performances, a new jury (renewed in 2025) with the much appreciated return of Jean-Marc Généreux and the arrival welcomed by all of Mel Charlot .
If we summarize, what will be the TF1 event in 2025?
We will already have a very good year of sport with two major women's sports events, including a completely new one on our broadcasts (Women's Rugby World Cup, editor's note). We proved that we were capable of magnifying these major women's sporting events during the Women's Football World Cup in 2019. Furthermore, we will obviously have our fourth series: “All for Light”.
A word about your 50th birthday perhaps: several bonuses will celebrate this half century of existence of the front page. Which channel program had the most impact on you personally?
Considering my age, I am a child of the Club Dorothée generation! And besides, I am delighted that we will soon be offering a big bonus event presented by Nikos with the big return of Dorothée.
