46
|
ISSUE 2 2014
|
THE CHANNEL
he difference
between today and
20 years ago when
Euronews was first
born is that content
is no longer king of
everything. In
today’s hypercompetitive market
you need to explain to the
consumer why they should
consume your brand. They must
trust you. The time when CNN had
the best ever slogan, which was “Be
the first to know”, is over. No one
can be the first to know except
people who have a mobile phone
and a push app. As we are all
evolving in a pan-European
advertising market, which is
extremely small and very saturated,
the only way to grow and to deploy
a strategy is to diversify your
activities. If you look at the rate of
change in Africa, together with the
arrival of the high bandwidth
network, all the indications are that
over the next 10 years Africa will be
the continent with the highest growth.
Euronews made a
big splash in
January this year
when they
announced plans
for a new pan-
African sister
channel called
Africanews, in
partnership with
TeleCongo in
Brazzaville. We
asked CEO Michael
Peters how this
step fits in with the
company’s global
strategy
T
How can you break into this market?
We had two choices. The first was
to launch Euronews Africa and say
“Look guys, we are a big European
player and we bring you our
European perspective to enrich
your knowledge about news of the
world.”
The second option was to reject
precisely this approach, which to
me is an extremely condescending
one. So instead we were saying
“How about a joint venture where
we associate our expertise in
international news, editorial
independence, multilingualism,
short format news with your own
knowledge about the continent and
its culture etc.”
This is why we chose the name
Africanews which is totally
different from Euronews Africa.
Africanews is clearly a sister
channel of Euronews and not a
daughter. Africanews will be made
by Africans for Africans.
Africanews will produce its own
content as well as using content
My goal is:
How can I
better
meet the
user
experience?
“
”
EURONEWS’
AFRICANSISTER
The new
Euronews studio
complex in Lyon
