With budgets tightening across the board, Manuel Alduy, the head of cinema and international fiction at France Televisions, is looking to deepen ties with streamers, and bring them into the fold the same way the French broadcaster has long partnered with its European neighbors, including Germany’s ZDF and Italy’s RAI.
“We want to work more with platforms but there needs to be flexibility on both sides,” said Alduy in an interview with Variety ahead of France Télévisions’ presentation at Series Mania in Lille where the TV group will host the premiere of a dystopian – yet timely — drama “The Best Immigrant.”
After holding steady last year while commercial broadcasters such as Canal+ and TF1 scaled back, the public broadcaster will reduce its investment in film by €5 million in 2026. More broadly, the group’s investment in audiovisual content has dropped 10%, from €440 million to €400 million, in two years.
That squeeze is impacting the group’s fiction output. “Two or three years ago, we aimed to deliver three to four high-end event miniseries per year,” says Alduy. “Today, if we can deliver two, that’s already good.” Projects on the scale of Bille August’s prestige limited series “The Count of Monte Cristo,” which relied on international co-production (through the Alliance with ZDF and RAI) to lower costs, are becoming “the exception,” Alduy says, as partners across Europe face their own budget constraints.
With their deeper pockets and global reach, streamers are both an opportunity and a challenge for France Télévisions to align on economic models, rights and creative control in a way that works for both sides. “They’re often at double or triple our budgets,” Alduy says, noting that “the starting point is always the story — then rights, then financing.”
At the same time, France Télévisions is holding firm on its long-standing commitment to support domestic and European creation over imported U.S. hits. “We no longer acquire American series,” he says, pointing that the broadcaster has had success with flagship French series like “Alex Hugo” still draw around 5 million viewers, while recent miniseries such as “L’Affaire Laura Stern” have reached 3.5 million per episode across linear and digital.
But that editorial mandate could be tested. “If lawmakers reduce the public broadcasting budget, we’ll have to invest less in French fiction and potentially return to acquiring more foreign series, including American ones,” Alduy says, adding that other European public broadcasters are already moving in that direction. The exec joined France Televisions in 2021, after holding senior roles at Twentieth Century Fox and Canal+ Group where he played a crucial role in building the group’s film and TV strategy as head of the film division. Besides “The Best Immigrant” which is premiering in the international competition, France Televisions is also presenting the period adventure drama “Enchaînés” starring Olivier Gourmet and Enzo Rose, among others.
Canal+, TF1 and others reduced investment in content last year but yours remained stable, according to a recent study unveiled by the National Film Board. What about France Télévisions in 2026?
We’ve already announced that we will invest less in 2026 — about €5 million less. That doesn’t challenge our overall agreement with the sector, which allows for a 15% variation year to year. Out of that €5 million reduction, about €3 million will impact pre-buys — so production — and the rest will come from acquisitions of French films. In practical terms, that means three to four fewer films.
What is your current approach to international fiction and acquisitions?
We buy just under 200 episodes of European series per year. We no longer purchase American TV series. During our president’s previous term, we made a commitment to support French and European content creation. One of the outcomes of this is that we no longer invest in or spend money on American TV series, leaving that to streaming platforms, private broadcasters, and other platforms or broadcasters.
Is it difficult to deliver strong ratings without American series?
No. French fiction performs very strongly for us. On France 3, for example, “Alex Hugo” averages around 5 million viewers per episode. “Meurtres à…” ranges between 3 and 5 million, depending on whether it’s a repeat or a new episode. More recently, “L’Affaire Laura Stern,” a four-part miniseries on domestic violence starring Valérie Bonneton, reached around 3.5 million viewers per episode across linear and non-linear. So editorially, this strategy hasn’t had a negative impact on ratings.
What will you do if public funding continues to decline?
If we suffer another budget cut for public broadcasting, then we may have to invest less in French fiction, documentaries, and so on, and we could just have to go back to buying American series like we used to. We mustn’t forget that it was France Télévisions launched “ER” in France 20 years ago. Right now, in the short term, we don’t have a problem with inventory. We have enough content to air, but it’s clear that if this trend continues into 2027 or 2028, we’ll have to air more foreign series because it’s cheaper than producing our own. My colleagues in European public broadcasting, in other countries — whether smaller countries that can’t afford to support their national production at the same level as ours, or countries as big as ours but facing the same budget constraints — are already diving into American fiction. They don’t hold back. They’re heading to the L.A. screenings in May to select shows. But that hasn’t been the mandate of France Télévisions over the last ten years.
What are your investment obligations in film and TV?
Regulation requires us to invest 3.5% in cinema, and we are above that. Around 95% of that goes into French-language films. For audiovisual creation — including fiction, documentaries, animation and live performance — we had an agreement at €440 million. We reduced that to €420 million, and now to €400 million. Fiction accounts for the largest share — previously €280 million — so it will be directly impacted.
What does that mean for the volume and scale of series?
We’re facing a double constraint. High-budget series are harder to schedule because our programming budget is shrinking. At the same time, our overall investment is down by €40 million. If we can’t produce cheaper series, there will be a significant drop in volume. We’ll have to compensate with repeats or acquisitions of foreign series.
Could you still finance a series like Bille August’s “The Count of Monte-Cristo” in this context?
It would be difficult. We were able to do it because it was an international co-production, so it ended up costing us less per episode than a French series, but it’s becoming something of an exception. Basically, two years ago, we were hoping to have three to four high-budget, event-style miniseries a year to offer the public. That was three years ago. I think today, if we can get two a year, that’s good. This is partly due to our lower revenues — and thus our limited resources — but also because of the difficult market conditions, since these are series that require other broadcasters, and those other broadcasters aren’t doing well either. They have less money, so you’re combining the difficulty of finding partners willing to provide high-level funding with our own limited resources.
How are you working with streamers today?
We want to collaborate more with platforms, but there needs to be flexibility on both sides. Their metrics and editorial strategies are different. They tend to focus on high-budget projects — often double or triple our production costs — and they have the means to do so. For us, the starting point is always the story. Then comes the question of rights — especially non-linear rights, which are essential for us — and only after that, financing. We’ve had successful collaborations: “Lucky Luke” with Disney+, “Zorro” with Paramount+, and projects with HBO Max and Amazon. But most of these originated at France Télévisions. That’s key for us. We’ve rarely joined projects initiated by platforms.
The Alliance – the partnership between France Télévisons, Italy’s RAI and Germany’s ZDF with which you financed “Monte Cristo” — is also still up and running, correct?
Yes, we actually launched a call for projects on romcoms last year through the Alliance. We ended up selecting three projects, but we’re not announcing them all yet because we’re still aligning their development timelines. These things take time. The projects come from different countries and have different stakes. But they’re not high-end, big-budget shows — they’re mid-range, more reasonable in terms of cost. More broadly, this type of project fits into our lighter programming strategy. With series like romcoms, or titles like “Rallye 82” (previously titled “Female Driver”), we’re in a more accessible, light entertainment space, but still with a public service angle. “Rallye 82,” for instance, allows us to address themes like inclusion and empowerment without being overly didactic.
What types of series projects are you most interested in today?
We have several editorial pillars. First, event-driven, family-oriented series for key periods like Christmas — big, unifying shows. Second, geopolitical thrillers, which are harder to finance but important — like “Kabul” or “The Best Immigrant,” which explores immigration through a Belgian perspective but resonates globally. Third, lighter formats such as romcoms or series like “Rallye 82.” Overall, our message is clear: we want to work more with platforms, but the model needs to be economically sustainable for everyone.
You also oversee film acquisitions. Are movies performing well on France Télévisions?
We’re seeing a positive shift: box office performance in France is becoming less predictive of how a film will perform on free-to-air TV. Of course, a theatrical hit still has a better chance of delivering strong ratings, but it’s no longer a given. We’ve seen this very clearly during the 2025–2026 season. In key slots like Sunday night on France 2, we’ve aired films that did fewer than 100,000 admissions in theaters and still reached around 2 million viewers. That’s not our highest score, but starting from very low awareness and getting to 2 million means we’ve done our job. Meanwhile, some films that sold over a million tickets in theaters didn’t perform much better on TV. There’s a real desynchronization now. It used to apply mainly to highly formatted films for TV, like big-cast comedies, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. What kind of films are working best for you on free-to-air television?
What kind of films are working best for you on free-to-air TV?
They’re often dramedies with familiar but not A-list casts, that didn’t perform strongly in theaters but find a solid audience on TV. For us, that reflects greater audience curiosity. Viewers are more open to discovering content, regardless of the platform. That does influence our pre-buy strategy. We tend to favor films with familiar faces — not necessarily stars, but recognizable actors. A cast of complete unknowns is more difficult. Interestingly, that matters more than the subject matter. A film can tackle a very tough topic; that’s not an issue. The other key factor is clarity. Films that perform best on free TV tend to have a proposition that’s easy for audiences to grasp.
Most people watch content online rather than on linear television today. How do you take that into account?
The challenge is that audiences have accelerated their on-demand habits. Replay is now essential — but it’s no longer enough. In TV fiction, preview has become extremely important. When a series performs well in preview — meaning strong consumption before linear broadcast — it’s almost always a strong indicator of success on linear TV. We’re not seeing cannibalization between the two. With films, we can’t do that. Regulation prevents us from offering non-linear access before the first broadcast. The only authorized non-linear window is replay, after linear airing. But what matters is the overall exposure window — for example, 30 days — rather than exactly when the linear broadcast happens within that period. So going forward, we may need to rethink this model.
What’s the big message you want to send across at Series Mania?
We need to work together more with streamers. I hope to be able to do things like we did with, for example, ZDF and RAI. With these two partners, there are projects that, at first, were more of a France Télévision projects – for example, “Kabul“—and at some point, it became a joint France Télévisions, ZDF, and RAI project. We were all together in the writers’ room and everyone took ownership of it, and so on. “The Emperor’s Stone” is a project we chose together. We haven’t managed to pull off that kind of project with the streaming platforms yet.
variety.com
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