France Télévisions Doubles its Digital Audience For the Tour de France

A new kind of fragmented audience

France Télévisions was facing a challenge that is common to rights holders around the world. Their audience was increasingly fragmented, using multiple devices and platforms to consume content. The broadcaster traditionally distributed live Tour de France content exclusively on linear TV, followed by evening highlights shows. But with audiences of all ages tuning in to live TV less often, France Télévisions needed to meet them where they were.

The Solution

Tools for creating more content than ever

France Télévisions began using Wildmoka’s cloud-based video editing and distribution technology during the 2019 Tour de France. The platform allowed the broadcaster to implement a new strategy for engaging fractured audiences across generations and develop greater interest and excitement around the race than ever before. 

They used Wildmoka to create three main kinds of content:

• Multiple live streams: These were published from Wildmoka to France Télévisions’ CDN, and were shown on the OTT app and web portals. The technology allowed audiences to switch between different live cameras themselves, giving users the power to decide what they wanted to watch and when. 

• Clips and highlights: Wildmoka allowed France Télévisions’ editors to capture and edit moments from the race and rapidly distribute these to social media. Wildmoka automatically converts video to the appropriate format and size for each platform and applies branding, ads and other templates. These published videos typically lasted less than one minute, but it was possible to publish videos of up to several hours in length. 
• Reels and summaries: Wildmoka enabled editors to create valuable race summaries, analysis and teasers of between one and 10 minutes. 

France Télévisions’s ultimate strategy was to drive audiences back to their owned and operated environments (their OTT and linear TV broadcasts). This allowed them to develop a closer relationship with fans, and ensured they retained 100% of ad revenues. 

Using Wildmoka’s solution to power their strategy delivered enormous benefits to France Télévisions. 

The most important factor is of course viewer numbers - and the headline figures were remarkable. In 2019, there were almost 22 million views of Tour de France content on France Télévisions’ internal OTT app, more than doubling the previous year’s views. Meanwhile, on social media, the broadcaster achieved over 33 million views, of which 17.5m came from just 255 Facebook videos.  

The massive increase in content on social media platforms helped drive engagement with linear TV footage of the Tour de France too. In 2019, viewership was up 4% on the previous year, a significant increase. 

But perhaps the most important measure of success for France Télévisions was the fact that they made progress in engaging a new generation of fans. In the youth market (those aged 15-24), 35% of the demographic viewed Tour de France content in 2019, compared to 33.5% in 2018. By getting content in front of younger fans, France Télévisions can ensure long-term engagement with the competition.