TF1+: France’s Streaming Platform Turns To Africa

TF1+, France’s foremost ad-supported video on-demand streaming platform, has  announced plans to embrace the African audiences, extending their services to the continent. This move comes as part of the company’s global expansion strategy that was initially announced last year.

Launched on 8th January 2024 as a replacement for the services offered by MyTF1, TF1+ is owned by the TF1 Group whose major shareholder is the Bouygues Group, a French multinational industrial holding company. As of October, the digital advertising revenues for TF1+ had increased by about 40%. 

As a platform TF1+ offers French audience premium video content that includes a range of popular programmes. The platform is made available on at least four screens—TV, PC, smartphone and tablet—and gives a round-the-clock access to over 15,000 hours of news and entertainment. The range of content includes hundreds of feature films, TV series, box sets and carefully curated content for children and young adults.

Despite being relatively a new platform that is yet to be embraced by most parts of the world, TF1+’s recent interest and proposed investment in Africa signifies the outfit’s willingness to compete favourably with domestic streamers like Showmax and Circuits and international ones like Netflix and Prime Video that have a stronghold on the continent’s entertainment scene. It also indicates the intentionality towards globalizing the French brand within the shortest possible time.

As of 2024, barely a year after releasing her first African Original, Prime Video had major pushback in the African market, ceasing funding for original content and laying off employees in the African sector of the brand. Towards the end of the same year, there were rumours of Netflix scaling down investments in certain regions, most notably reduced funding for Nigerian films. Stakeholders in Nollywood believed that such drawbacks would be due to poor subscriber growth and mismanagement of Netflix filmmaking funds by unscrupulous producers. Now the question is, what do these mean for TF1+? 

Although not much is known about the operational models of TF1+ in her quest for African audiences, one expects the French streaming platform to exploit the weaknesses of Netflix and Prime Video on the continent. This would require that their officials closely study the dynamics of the African market and come up with better, possibly foolproof strategies, to remain afloat and successful. Experts have credited the failure of Prime Video in Africa to poor understanding of audience needs, poor user experience, and insufficient publicity for contents. The long-term success of TF1+ in the same market would depend on her ability to overcome these problems and others that may arise.

It is understandable that the establishment of TF1+ in Africa gives the French an opportunity to further  propagate their entertainment culture across the continent, including non-French-speaking African countries. But this similarly presents Africa the chance to sell her traditional values and cultures to the French and other parts of the globe, through strategic partnerships birthing African Original contents on the platform.

TF1+’s roadmap, according to Bloomberg, showed that it would commence operations in Francophone African countries, particularly in North Africa before expanding to other parts of the continent. It will be interesting to see how this slow-and-steady approach unfolds and further positions African storytelling and cinema for global excellence.