ELISABETH DURAND EN

What good causes are supported by TF1’s broadcasting operations ?

The Group currently supports around 130 charities a year, involving a variety of good causes.

Among the longest established is Pièces jaunes, which works to improve the daily lives of children in hospital. The TF1 channel gives it a special prime time slot (a Grand Concours quiz show special featuring TF1 presenters) as well as a week of 12 coups de midi. The Group is also highly active in the fight against poverty and insecurity on French soil via its partnership with the food support charity Restos du Cœur. This includes broadcasting the annual Enfoirés concert and a documentary about the charity’s actions on the ground, as well as making numerous appeals for donations on all the Group’s channels.

On the research side, the TF1 group partners national campaigns like Sidaction (Aids), which is one of our flagship charities, and the Institut Pasteur fundraiser Pasteurdon.

During the Covid pandemic in 2020, we donated airtime to help the hospital charity Fondation des hôpitaux de Paris and medical research charity Fondation pour la recherche médicale. And during the Covid-related lockdowns and curfews there has unfortunately been a big upsurge in violence against women and children, so we have broadcast a hotline number and ad spots for the Fondation des Femmes women’s aid charity to support vulnerable people.

We are also working with smaller charities like ELA in the fight against leukodystrophy, and run one-off campaigns on good causes connected with disability, including events like disabled people co-presenting our weather forecasts on Duoday.

How do you choose the charities ?

To respond to the numerous applications, we have set up a CSR committee with Christelle Leroy (the Group’s Head of CSR), and representatives from Broadcasting, advertising airtime sales, Legal Affairs, Communications and Programme Compliance.

Our objective is to make all our skills available to the charities, and then to put together the best package of skills for each one.

In the Committee, Christelle sets out the broad lines of the Group’s CSR policy under which we choose which applicants to support. The selection criteria are the same regardless of the platform concerned (TV, online or advertising): the seriousness of the charity, its credibility, location, purpose and planned use of funds (for fundraisers). Each charity must align with our CSR objectives and be consistent with the type of good causes we support: i.e. provide help to the most vulnerable in society, or carry out medical research. After validation, applications are handled either by our Broadcasting or airtime sales teams as appropriate.

How do they get to the broadcast stage ?

Once it has been checked, the charity’s ad spot is sent for scheduling, either to our Broadcasting team or our airtime sales team. If there is no space available for the spot we do everything we can via our scheduling teams to find an editorial slot in one of our programmes, such as 12 coups de midi, Quotidien, news bulletins, weather forecasts, etc. In some specific cases we may decide to produce the spot ourselves, which generally optimises its impact.

What is the nature of the Group’s support for these charities ?

Our channels provide a great showcase for raising the profile of charities we support. The objective is to help them deliver their message so that they can secure funds to carry out concrete action on the ground. Our support can take various forms:

• a special programme focused on one good cause
• an editorial feature in our news bulletins, magazine programmes, weather forecasts, etc
• broadcasting fundraising appeals on our channels, and sometimes producing them ourselves to help the charity get its message across.

In addition to our TV channels we also use online media, which has fewer time constraints and provides an opportunity for longer videos and interviews.

Finally, the Group’s talents can also provide strong support by acting as patrons of certain charities.

As a leading media outlet we have a close relationship with the public. It is part of our role to shine a light on the major good causes, but also on the smaller causes and the charities who champion them.