The former head of M6 has just stepped down from his leadership role at LFP Media after orchestrating the launch of Ligue 1+, a groundbreaking sports platform. He reflects on the keys to its success and shares his vision for soccer… and television.
365: Ligue 1+ was launched quickly, amid a tense situation and without a single buyer for the rights. Looking back, how would you define the purpose of this platform and how do you explain its success after so many failures ?
Nicolas de Tavernost (Translator’s note): Ligue 1+ was born out of necessity. No broadcaster was willing to purchase all the matches and air them under satisfactory conditions. However, failing to broadcast Ligue 1 would have been a collective failure. So we decided to create our own platform, with a clear goal: to ensure the league’s accessibility. But very quickly, this project went beyond a purely defensive strategy. Ligue 1+ became a strategic tool for broadcasting, editorial promotion, and winning back the audience. We worked simultaneously on two essential areas: distribution and editorial content. The platform was designed to endure, evolve, and support French soccer in a profoundly transformed media ecosystem.
365: One of your mantras is that “the product alone isn’t enough” and that distribution accounts for at least 50% of success. Why is this issue key ?
Translator’s Note: Because without effective distribution, even a great product remains invisible! I’ve seen this throughout my career—in television, film, and the Internet. You can have the best content, but if it’s hard to access, it won’t work, and you won’t be able to invest—or if you do, you’ll lose money. For Ligue 1+, our focus has therefore been on “hyperdistribution”: being easily accessible everywhere—through operators, direct subscriptions, streaming platforms, and, in the future, new media channels. In a market saturated with options, reducing “friction” is essential for attracting and retaining subscribers.
365: You argue that the league should be conceived as a soap opera, with characters, stakes, and a continuous narrative arc. How does this vision transform the way we tell the story of soccer and produce content?
Translator’s Note: Of course, the production of the games already existed, but the entire ecosystem—commentary, magazine features, marketing, and so on—still needed to be built. My vision is that a league isn’t just a series of isolated games; it’s a “story” that unfolds over the course of a season. Our role is to make that story clear, intense, and vivid.
The raw material is the games themselves, which are inevitably subject to the vagaries of sports. The editorial content—commentary, magazine segments, and so on—is what creates meaning, highlighting rivalries, player trajectories, and what’s at stake moving forward. We talk constantly about the past and statistics, but not enough about what’s coming next. Yet it’s the future stakes that create the desire to come back—both on the air and online! The narrative must continue before, during, and after the games, including during breaks. It’s this continuity that allows us to build a lasting relationship with the subscriber.
365: In the age of on-demand viewing and streaming platforms, sports remain one of the few types of content that do not “ tune out ” . Why does live sports coverage retain this central role?
Translator’s Note:Agame is best experienced live, with all its uncertainty and intensity. Watching it on replay isn’t nearly as engaging. That’s why sports, along with news, remain one of the last great collective experiences. Today, we’re witnessing a complete convergence: platforms are integrating live content and advertising, television is going digital, and YouTube is broadcasting live. Two worlds that didn’t interact just a few years ago are now merging. Sports act as a catalyst. They attract audiences, bring people together, and create excitement. As a result, they remain a strategic pillar, regardless of the distribution method.
365: Between platforms and new ways of using it, television seems to be changing in nature. In your opinion, what will tomorrow the audiovisual ecosystem ?
Translator’s Note: We are not experiencing a rupture, but rather a profound technological evolution. The internet allows everyone to become their own programmer. Streaming platforms first attracted fiction, then documentaries, sports, and tomorrow, near-live news. And the models are converging: advertising is returning to streaming platforms, while linear channels are developing digital offerings. There are no longer two worlds, but a single audiovisual ecosystem where the key remains the same as it was yesterday: offering desirable content that is well “told” and, above all, well distributed. Technology changes, but the fundamentals do not…
Interview by Matthieu Sénécot / Consultant (with Philippe Manière / President)
