The French international channel TV5Monde has announced a “strategic plan”, based on new media (internet and mobile) and the inclusion of subtitling, to revive a declining audience in the world. CEO Marie-Christine Zaragoza has also announced the launch of five sites, which are designed to make the channel a “global media”.
Speaking at a press conference, Zaragoza estimated that the channel lost about 10% of its viewership, mainly due to the changeover from analogue to digital. TV5Monde now claims a weekly audience of 54 million viewers.
In order to combat the falling figures, TV5Monde intends to create an “on-demand” portal, also available on mobile. It also plans to launch its own ‘channels’ on Youtube and Dailymotion, as well as three different mobile sites. Two new WebTV channels will also be launched: this spring will see the birth of Tivi5 Plus, a site dedicated to children and TV5Afrique Plus, which will launch later this year with an African audience in mind.
TV5 Monde will also improve its service to Africa and Asia. Starting on January 26, there will be an increased number of programmes subtitled in English. Later this year, the feed to Asia will be split in two to better address the different time zones in the continent. With regards to subtitling, the channel will increase the total output in subtitles by 50% in the nine languages it offers.
Finally, the volume of the captions in nine languages on the chain will be increased by 50% to expand the audience for TV5Monde outside the French.