TV5MONDE expands its worldwide French-speaking community with multi-platform delivery

LOUISE™ Business Management System drives content for multiple broadcast channels, web, VOD and mobile distribution

Paris, France, September 8, 2010

- TV5MONDE, the French-language global television network, has achieved rapid expansion and growth with the addition of non-linear platforms powered by the LOUISE™ Business Management System from ProConsultant Informatique. TV5MONDE operates 9 different French-language television channels with an expansive lineup of news, information, sports and entertainment programs that are viewed in nearly 200 countries and 215 million households. As an international network, it ranks in the top 3 with MTV and CNN. And now, TV5MONDE reaches beyond broadcast with many additional viewers and as many as 8.5 million hits each month on its tv5monde.com website and its mobile version.

Behind the scenes, the TV5MONDE team relies on the LOUISE™ system which acts as the content engine and programming hub for all of TV5MONDE’s broadcast channels as well as non-linear platform outlets including VOD, web and mobile.

“LOUISE™ is comprehensive in scope and has helped us to expand our programming presence into new media while respecting budget constraints, allowing us to very efficiently extend both our linear and non-linear channels in a cost effective, centralized way,” says Mrs. Marie-Christine Saragosse, General Manager of TV5MONDE. “With these new distribution paths of web, mobile and VOD, our programming is available to even larger audiences – whether on the TV screen, PC monitors or mobile phones. LOUISE™ allows us to program efficiently regardless of the delivery platform.”

LOUISE™ provides a unified platform for managing and tracking rights, metadata and scheduling across all of TV5MONDE’s broadcast channels as well as the new media distribution outlets. LOUISE™ is used to catalogue content, to schedule programs, and to track media assets, ensuring that rights and usage restrictions are respected. Each broadcast channel is programmed individually, tailored to fit the particular regional needs and tastes. LOUISE™ also manages data that display subtitles in 10 different languages for the pre-recorded programs.

“LOUISE™ is built on an open framework that allows us to incorporate the latest advances in technology with new modules and features to meet the changing needs of the market and our customers,” says Hervé Obed, founder and CEO of ProConsultant Informatique. “This future-forward approach ensures that the system can address new challenges with increased functionality while adding value to the customer over time.”

To generate content for use on VOD and other non-linear platforms, producers use the MediaBench module of LOUISE to speed repurposing and content assembly. MediaBench includes tools to quickly edit longer programs into shorter, web and mobile-friendly segments; at the same time appropriate metadata for all segments are preserved and linked to the original program. Short promos, including thumbnails, graphics and hyperlinks can also be created with MediaBench. VOD playlists can be generated automatically or created by dragging and dropping elements into a playlist.

“The non-linear modules of LOUISE are fully integrated and natural extensions of the core product so it is quite easy for our production team to package programs for the new platforms,” says Mr. Jean-Pierre Verines, CTO of TV5MONDE. “Additionally, LOUISE follows a set of directives to automatically manage the transcoding and delivering of the content to the appropriate platform, saving a lot of time and limiting user manipulations.”

“ProConsultant has been an excellent technical and business partner, always responsive to changing technologies and conscious of the need to improve productivity,” says Mrs. Saragosse. “They have helped us face the challenge of delivering more programming to more outlets without adding significant manpower or overhead. We’ve had very positive results.”

About TV5MONDE

For 26 years, TV5MONDE has been serving viewers around the world with 9 different French-language programming channels, including 8 broadcast from Paris covering the world and a Canadian channel which broadcasts from TV5 Quebec Canada in Montreal across Canada. More than 215 million households in almost 200 countries and regions are connected to TV5MONDE. Programming includes news, drama, documentaries, films, sports, general interest/variety and cartoons. TV5MONDE’s local production is supplemented by contributions from 10 French-language channel partners (France 2, France 3, France 4, France 5, France O’, ARTE France, RTBF, TSR, Radio-Canada and Télé-Québec) and the CIRTEF. Its main shareholder, the Holding de l’Audiovisuel Extérieur de la France, includes France 24 and RFI. Programs are subtitled in 10 different languages, appropriate to individual regions. The tv5monde.com website (and its mobile version m.tv5monde.com) receive 8.5 million hits each month.

About ProConsultant Informatique

ProConsultant Informatique develops state-of-the-art management software for media organizations. Based in Metz, France, the company’s flagship business management software LOUISE and its sales/traffic system CINDY are enterprise solutions offering straight-forward, intuitive workflows with a sophisticated infrastructure that provides maximum control and access to information and metadata for management, data exchange, analysis and reporting. With more than a decade of experience, reliability and a proven track record in nearly 200 television and multi-media organizations worldwide ProConsultant exemplifies excellence in innovation and performance. For more information, please visit www.proconsultant.net

Press Contacts

Janice Dolan Thomas Legrand

Zazil Media Group TV5MONDE

email janice@zazilmediagroup.com thomas.legrand@tv5monde.org

Tel: +1 (617) 817-6595