Fabrice Bakhouche, CEO of Sipa-Ouest-France, explained the rationale behind the decision during our World News Media Congress in Krakow.
“Video is the future for our legacy media. We have to adapt to this new format to retain our audience and attract new readers who are more used to watching videos rather than reading articles,” Bakhouche said.
Ouest France, owned by Sipa-Ouest-France Group, is the most widely read French-language daily newspaper. It operates three large digital news platforms – Ouest France, Actu.fr, and 20 Minutes – with more than 30 million pageviews every month.
The group has 4,200 employees, including 1,200 journalists, and collaborates with 4,000 local press correspondents.
Aim to boost national visibility, subscriptions
To minimise the risks, Ouest France has formed strategic partnerships with industry leaders. The company has teamed up with TF1 Publicité, the advertising arm of the TF1 Group in France, to handle the monetisation of the new TV channel.
Explaining the benefits of the partnership, Bakhouche noted that the CPM (cost per mille) rates on TF1’s streaming platform are 6 to 10 times higher than Ouest France’s own digital platforms.
TF1 is the market leader in France. They have strong expertise in advertising and monetising revenues, both on linear television and on streaming platforms.
TF1’s streaming platform is growing at 30% per year, according to Bakhouche. It accounts for around 15% of their total revenues.
“We think that TV could give us greater national visibility, helping to draw attention to Ouest-France as a newspaper and possibly gain new subscribers through traditional subscriptions or a bundled offer of digital access and exclusive TV content,” he said.
Additionally, Ouest France is collaborating with France Télévisions and Together Media to produce talk shows, leveraging their expertise in creating successful talk shows for channels such as Canal Plus and Arte.
Of the revenue model, Bakhouche said, “Our TV will be an ad-based television, not a pay TV. We don’t have the authorisation to make pay TV.”
Incorporating new technologies such as AI is also in the company’s plans.
“Our competitive advantage is to be a blank slate (as we are very new), so we are able to be more agile and experiment with new things around AI to automate processes and edit videos more efficiently,” he added.
Also read: Infolocale, Ouest France’s self-service platform for local events, fuels revenue and engagement
Leveraging local expertise for exclusive content
Ouest France’s strength lies in its deep understanding of the local communities it serves, Bakhouche said.
“Our force, our competitive advantage is to be close to our readers, to our communities, and to be unrivalled on local and hyper local news on our territory (western regions of France),” he noted.
Ouest France is exploring ways to leverage this local expertise and collaborate with tech companies and AI-powered search engines to provide exclusive content.
The company believes these strategic partnerships can help it overcome the challenges of expanding beyond its traditional stronghold to reach a wider audience.
Although Ouest France’s foray into television represents a major shift in its strategy, it sheds light on the broader goal of diversifying revenue streams and tapping into the growing demand for video content.
“If we just stay still and keep talking among ourselves, nothing will happen. We have to be proactive and imagine solutions that could be understandable and profitable,” Bakhouche said.
