Julien Verley, currently director of business development at France Televisions, will leave the company in agreement with France Televisions, as of June 30, 2019, in order to launch his project France+ Channel and the France+ App.
France+ Channel and the France+ App project is aiming at exposing internationally the depth of the audiovisual French production as well as cherry picked European programmes (movies, drama, documentaries, animation, performing arts and magazines), through the distribution of an editorialized offer aggregating up to 2,500 to 3,000 hours per year of programs, fully dubbed and sub-titled in English, Spanish and Chinese Mandarin.
The project takes its clue from Britbox, launched by BBC and ITV, according to Verley, who says “France+ Channel and France+ App will be inspired by the strong and attractive values underlying the label ‘France’ and its roots across Europe. The offer will capitalise on the famous ‘art et douceur de vivre’, beauty of the territories, arts, culture, creativity, society, heritage, history and education through the depth and the diversity of the programs proposed. Its identity rooted in the French and European cultural heritage will clearly mark its differentiation compared to the Anglo-Saxons global offers.”
”I’m confident that this project which will end up exposing globally French audiovisual creation is benefiting from a favourable context, with on one side, a risk of scarcity of original contents withdrawn by the large US global platforms and on an other side, the unprecedented opening of Anglo Saxons markets to international programmes dubbed in English”
The offer will be largely accessible through its localisation on the territories of distribution starting with English, Spanish and Chinese. Targeting English, Spanish and Chinese speaking population will provide a very large potential globally to expose the French and European creation, mainly in territories where it is marginally exploited. It is not intended to commercialize this offer in French speaking countries nor in Western Europe (except UK and Spain), as the export market of French programs is already well developed. Such an offer will be unprecedented in France.
The offer will rely on the libraries of the distributors of French programmes, and a strategic partnership is under discussion with large groups such as Group Canal+, Group France Televisions and Group TF1, in order to secure access to thousands of hours of programs.
In order to finance its development, the project will raise funds from investors in the coming weeks.
Julien Verley aded: “The quality, the diversity and the depth of French and European programs represent an undervalued and underexploited mine. I’d like to thank particularly France Television, and her President, Delphine Ernotte Cunci, for her support and trust, without which it would not have been possible to launch.”
