"Our market share must not fall below 30 percent"
TSR boss Gilles Marchand on the competition and the young audience
TSR boss Gilles Marchand on the competition and the young audienceAs he takes office, the new CEO of Télévision Suisse Romande (TSR), Gilles Marchand, announces a gentle reorientation. The basic tenor: TSR must focus even more strongly on the audience and the market. The previous TSR Head of Information, Philippe Mottaz, is being promoted to Director of IT and New Media, and you recently gave your "inaugural lecture" to TSR staff. What were the most important messages you wanted to get across?
Gilles Marchand: First of all, TSR is doing well overall. We hold around a third of the French-speaking Swiss market, even though the competition has tripled. What remains to be improved is the internal functioning of the station. We will be announcing a new program structure in September, and there will be further changes next year. Finally, I believe that we need to focus more on marketing. The interactivity sector will also be expanded.
If you ask around among TSR employees, you get the echo: Marchand communicates very well, but what he communicates is a bit overcautious. Apart from the promotion of Mottaz, there are few changes in the management structure. It is said that you wanted to create something new with the old crew.
Marchand: That's right. I deliberately refrain from turning everything upside down. Because this station is basically doing well. We don't have a fire in the roof. But I can't accept that I should be overly cautious. There are many innovations in the production area, for example. But as I said, I don't want to change for the sake of change. After all, you can ruin a station if you go in too fast.
You say that TSR is doing well. But if you look at the viewer figures, you can see that the channel's market share has been eroding slightly but steadily in recent years.
Marchand: Yes, but even so, TSR's performance is still very good when you consider that the competition has multiplied.
Who do you see as your main competition? The big ones or the small ones?
Marchand: Both. The most important main competitor is of course still the French station TF 1 with a 16% market share in French-speaking Switzerland. However, we also have diffuse competition from stations with small market shares, which together are nevertheless significant.
TSR has a problem with young viewers in particular, doesn't it?
Marchand: Be careful not to set the bar too high here. All the major European broadcasters have their core audience, especially among the over-40s. If you measure us against that, we do quite well, and better than our German-speaking Swiss colleagues, by the way. We have a loyal audience over 50, that's true. But we are also number one with the young. But of course we have to make sure that we attract even more young people. Not just because of their purchasing power. They are the viewers of tomorrow. We are taking this into account by creating a "jeunes" sector.
What do you see as the critical threshold below which it would be difficult for TSR to justify the license fees?
Marchand: I think we should already have a market share of
30 percent, otherwise we will get into trouble.
Don't you also have the problem that your staff tends to be over-aged?
Marchand: We employ 1,200 people from all age groups and we are constantly recruiting new people. But you are addressing a real problem. Let me put it this way: We have a monoculture in French-speaking Switzerland; TSR is practically alone in the audiovisual media sector. Our employees have no alternative. That's why many of them have been with the company for 20 or 30 years. The situation is very different from Zurich.
For years it has been said that TSR should help to create a biotope of independent TV creators. Not much has happened. Do you have any ideas on how this old postulate could be realized?
Marchand: We have some small production companies that we need to work with. Cooperation with France could also be intensified. But again, our market is very, very narrow. We are much smaller than the German-speaking part of Switzerland.
Speaking of German-speaking Switzerland, contact between TSR and DRS television is very sparse. Shouldn't something be done?
Marchand: There are discussions at management level; I don't have the impression that Schellenberg and I are worlds apart. But at the program level, cooperation is difficult because the TV cultures on both sides of the language border are very different. In my previous job at Ringier Romandie, I made the same observation at Schweizer Illustrierte and Illustré: it is difficult to work closely together on content.
You come from the private sector and now work in a parastatal television station. Is that a culture shock?
Marchand: No. I find it fascinating to work in public TV, because it's one of the last places where Swiss people of different colors come together. There are a lot of motivated people here. Of course, there is also a law of inertia here. But this is also at work in certain private press groups, for example.
And the switch from the written press to television - a culture shock?
Marchand: Yes and no. I realize that the basic activity is similar: you want to inform and entertain an audience as well as possible. But the means of production are of course completely different. I still have a lot to learn.
Interview: Christophe Büchi
Gilles Marchand: First of all, TSR is doing well overall. We hold around a third of the French-speaking Swiss market, even though the competition has tripled. What remains to be improved is the internal functioning of the station. We will be announcing a new program structure in September, and there will be further changes next year. Finally, I believe that we need to focus more on marketing. The interactivity sector will also be expanded.
If you ask around among TSR employees, you get the echo: Marchand communicates very well, but what he communicates is a bit overcautious. Apart from the promotion of Mottaz, there are few changes in the management structure. It is said that you wanted to create something new with the old crew.
Marchand: That's right. I deliberately refrain from turning everything upside down. Because this station is basically doing well. We don't have a fire in the roof. But I can't accept that I should be overly cautious. There are many innovations in the production area, for example. But as I said, I don't want to change for the sake of change. After all, you can ruin a station if you go in too fast.
You say that TSR is doing well. But if you look at the viewer figures, you can see that the channel's market share has been eroding slightly but steadily in recent years.
Marchand: Yes, but even so, TSR's performance is still very good when you consider that the competition has multiplied.
Who do you see as your main competition? The big ones or the small ones?
Marchand: Both. The most important main competitor is of course still the French station TF 1 with a 16% market share in French-speaking Switzerland. However, we also have diffuse competition from stations with small market shares, which together are nevertheless significant.
TSR has a problem with young viewers in particular, doesn't it?
Marchand: Be careful not to set the bar too high here. All the major European broadcasters have their core audience, especially among the over-40s. If you measure us against that, we do quite well, and better than our German-speaking Swiss colleagues, by the way. We have a loyal audience over 50, that's true. But we are also number one with the young. But of course we have to make sure that we attract even more young people. Not just because of their purchasing power. They are the viewers of tomorrow. We are taking this into account by creating a "jeunes" sector.
What do you see as the critical threshold below which it would be difficult for TSR to justify the license fees?
Marchand: I think we should already have a market share of
30 percent, otherwise we will get into trouble.
Don't you also have the problem that your staff tends to be over-aged?
Marchand: We employ 1,200 people from all age groups and we are constantly recruiting new people. But you are addressing a real problem. Let me put it this way: We have a monoculture in French-speaking Switzerland; TSR is practically alone in the audiovisual media sector. Our employees have no alternative. That's why many of them have been with the company for 20 or 30 years. The situation is very different from Zurich.
For years it has been said that TSR should help to create a biotope of independent TV creators. Not much has happened. Do you have any ideas on how this old postulate could be realized?
Marchand: We have some small production companies that we need to work with. Cooperation with France could also be intensified. But again, our market is very, very narrow. We are much smaller than the German-speaking part of Switzerland.
Speaking of German-speaking Switzerland, contact between TSR and DRS television is very sparse. Shouldn't something be done?
Marchand: There are discussions at management level; I don't have the impression that Schellenberg and I are worlds apart. But at the program level, cooperation is difficult because the TV cultures on both sides of the language border are very different. In my previous job at Ringier Romandie, I made the same observation at Schweizer Illustrierte and Illustré: it is difficult to work closely together on content.
You come from the private sector and now work in a parastatal television station. Is that a culture shock?
Marchand: No. I find it fascinating to work in public TV, because it's one of the last places where Swiss people of different colors come together. There are a lot of motivated people here. Of course, there is also a law of inertia here. But this is also at work in certain private press groups, for example.
And the switch from the written press to television - a culture shock?
Marchand: Yes and no. I realize that the basic activity is similar: you want to inform and entertain an audience as well as possible. But the means of production are of course completely different. I still have a lot to learn.
Interview: Christophe Büchi
