During FIPADOC, the Biarritz International Documentary Film Festival, the directors of France Télévisions announced their intention of developing digital documentaries.
Takis Candilis, deputy director general for channels and programmes, spoke about this new direction: “France Télévisions has to change, because ahead of us new uses require significant changes.” By developing digital documentaries the French broadcasting group intends to differentiate itself from its competitors. And meet a growing demand from the public.
France Télévisions produces 9,000 documentaries a year. The budget for this genre has been ring-fenced until 2022, despite severe budget restrictions elsewhere. The group will invest €101 million in documentary production during 2019. 5% of this budget will be devoted to digital documentaries, exploring various formats such as documentary series.
The new documentary unit will be divided into four areas: international co-production, “history and culture”, “discovery and science” and “society and geopolitics”. Catherine Alvaresse, who heads the unit, said France Télévisions wants to broadcast “films necessary to fight sectarianism, without using competing versions of the past, without dogmatism.”
Nathalie Darrigrand, the group’s director of programmes, said the documentaries offered by the public channels “are the kind of programmes only public television can produce, appreciated enormously by viewers, they have the highest marks in our qualitative surveys.”
At FIPADOC France Télévisions premiered its wild-life documentary L’Odyssée du loup, which will be shown at prime time on a Saturday evening on France 2.
Sources: http://www.cbnews.fr , https://lexpansion.lexpress.fr
