French TV executives look to life after Salto
MARCH 25, 2024 13.51 EUROPE/LONDON BY JULIAN CLOVER

The boss of public broadcaster France Télévisions has admitted the Salto platform was a ‘strategic mistake’.

Delphine Ernotte Cunci was speaking at the Séries Mania Forum in Lille. “Even a single app, even a single button, doesn’t guarantee that people will press that button,” she said when asked about the Salto experience.

The streaming platform was jointly run by France Télévisions, M6 and TF1, It closed a year ago this week.

Stopping it was “not my choice, nor the choice of Nicolas [de Tavernost, outgoing chairman of M6]”, said Ernotte Cunci, suggesting the man behind the decision was the TF1 CEO Rodolphe Belmer. “From my point of view, it was a strategic error. I hope we get over it.”

Since then attention has moved to a joint platform in the mould of the UK’s Freely, which goes beyond that of just an app, and into the delivery of an entire IPTV service and ecosystem for public service broadcasters.

“This common application will allow the French to continue watching channels in an ergonomic way,” said Nicolas de Tavernost. “The English showed us the way with Freely.”