TV FRANCE INTERNATIONAL OFFERS NEW DIGITAL ALTERNATIVES TO GLOBAL BUYERS

TV France International is an industry association bringing together more than 120 French companies active on the international market, as producers, sales companies, or the distribution arm of broadcasters and Its mission is to facilitate the export of French programming through sales and international coproductions.

The Association has a digital platform called Screenopsis and recently launched LEGuide, a new mobile app for TV France International markets and their associated virtual screening rooms. “At this time where they have troubles and all the markets are shut down or postponed, is of course, a very difficult situation so when we realised that i was going to be very hard on them, what we did was accelerate our digital presence,” explained Sarah Hemar, Executive Director of TV France International.

Screenopsis is a website offering free access to French audiovisual production for accredited buyers which lists more than 15.000 video files for streaming, complete with advanced features.  The platform is fed by French producers and distributors using rapid and intuitive referencing of programs and simplified uploading of video files by sales companies.

LEGuide was launched in September 2019, for the last Rendez-Vous Biarritz and is the new mobile app for TV France International’s markets and their associated virtual screening rooms. Accessible via computer (Windows/Mac), tablet or smartphone (Android/IOS), LEGuide provides access to a wealth of useful information ahead of events, both online and offline: Programs, companies, contacts, etc.

On this unusual and uncertain moment for the entertainment industry, TV France International chose reinforce its screening rooms, which will set up during the events such as MIPTV, Series Mania and Busan Content Market. “We maintained the MIPTV screening room in our digital platform so all the French exporters can present the freshest offers, that they wanted to showcase to the buyers.” said Hemar.  “At MIPTV we opened our offer so they can present 10 programs instead of four and we also opened the platform to the members were are not directly exhibiting with us on MIPTV, so all together there are 68 companies presenting programs on Screenopsis.” added.  

The Executive Director of TV France International asserted that the Association will share these digital tools with all the buyers that they had in its database but if anyone want to join to the offer and has not access, they can create it. “They have to come to us, it’s free for buyers but it has to be approved by our team,”, affirmed Hemar.

“We’ve already employed Screenopsis and  LEGuide before the pandemic started and we wanted to accelerate their use and promote them in the best way so we are now forced to do it more than ever but it was already part of our strategy so we will continue with that because if this unfortunate  turn of events continues and what it shows us is that we need to be agile we need to be, both, on the ground when we can and on digital when we can not.”, concluded.  

By Romina Rodríguez