On Friday June 15, France Télévisions, M6 and TF1 announced the creation of a joint OTT platform to be called SALTO. TDF welcomes this initiative and the successful conclusion of discussions.
This collaborative announcement is a major and necessary step in the process of transforming the French television ecosystem to adapt to profound changes in usage and offerings. This project is beneficial for TV channels, for audiovisual creation and for all French households.
TDF is particularly excited about the enhanced offers and services that this new platform can bring to digital terrestrial television (DTT) users in particular.
In both qualitative and quantitative terms, the terrestrial platform is of vital importance to the vast majority of French people, who depend on it for their access to television (97% of French people have access to it, and 68% use it). DTT viewers benefit from very good quality (generalized HD) for linear streams, but for the time being remain deprived of non-linear services (notably replay), which are becoming increasingly popular.
TDF has always worked to enrich the range of services offered as a complement to the DTT platform. This modernization of the television offering is imperative in the new context of media consumption, marked by highly innovative and attractive OTT offers for consumers.
This dynamic of enrichment, notably through collaboration between audiovisual groups, is part of the roadmap published in February 2018 by the Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA), on the modernization of DTT, with the 2024 Olympic Games on the horizon. As France's leading terrestrial broadcaster, TDF recalls the essential place of DTT as an efficient and essential media content distribution platform and supports the CSA's roadmap.
Olivier Huart, Chairman and CEO of TDF, welcomes "this collaborative approach to support new digital uses. TDF will remain, and even more so in this context of innovation, the preferred technical partner of channels for the distribution of their programs and services to their audiences, with the aim of helping them make enriched DTT a differentiating advantage in the intense competition being played out in the media and digital sector."