CASE STUDIES
Managing the outsourcing of highly skilled human resources
Ever since its creation in 2005 and subsequent launch in 2006, FRANCE 24 has held a manifest desire to stand out from the broadcasting landscape. As the first international news channel to present a French view on world events, FRANCE 24’s added value is all about content rather than technology. In just eight months - a record for an operation of this kind - Technicolor demonstrated its technical expertise by managing FRANCE 24’s immediate priorities: to allow simultaneous broadcasting on two different channels (in French and English) and to optimise available technology and human resources. During Spring 2007, Technicolor also coordinated the addition of a third channel in Arabic, broadcasting four hours a day, seven days a week. This has allowed FRANCE 24 to focus on its core business - editorial content. In Technicolor they found they had a partner that understands their technical environment, from the staff and equipment viewpoint and from the perspective of optimising the cost of human resources.
Customer background and challenge
As a mutilingual news broadcaster, FRANCE 24 employs over 550 people from 35 nationalities, and 1,000 news correspondents around the world - many are in-house and the rest sourced from partner networks. Covering almost 115 million households in 160 countries, FRANCE 24 broadcasts 10-minute news bulletin every 30 minutes, along with news magazines and programmes at various times on its three channels. Each channel offers different language versions (in French, English or Arabic) sharing content in common. In order to meet this challenge, FRANCE 24 must have access to the best available technology and human resources. Resources have to be flexible enough to scale up rapidly during peak broadcasting and programming hours and capable of adapting to technological advances as well as increasing demand from viewers. The services also need to fit within FRANCE 24’s multiplatform broadcasting model.