Last July, NCI acquired the rights to the upcoming World Cup, which kicks off on November 20. As the exclusive broadcaster in Ivory Coast, how will you cover this event?
The stakes are high because we have to rise to the challenge of this event, which is the biggest competition in the world, on a par with or even bigger than the Olympic Games. We therefore need to give ourselves the means to offer viewers some great programming. That's what we've been working on since acquiring the rights: we've been working on the content and putting together the team to support the project's implementation. We've spent months thinking and talking with key people to bring this major project to life.
We have therefore created events that we hope will appeal to viewers. We are the only broadcasters of this World Cup in Côte d'Ivoire, so we want to offer the best possible coverage of the event. To start with, we are going to create a studio, "NCI Sport Live," to cover the matches, the pre-match, half-time, and post-match. There will be a total of 28 matches covered by these sets, broadcast exclusively, in full and live on NCI. What makes these sets unique is that they will be hosted by knowledgeable Ivorian or African football consultants, football players such as Baky Koné, former internationals, coaches, selectors, sports journalists, Ivorian professionals, and more.
We have a big challenge ahead of us, so we have given ourselves the means to meet it. Thanks to technological advances, we can now work with anyone in the world without having to travel to Abidjan.
Beyond NCI Sport Live, which will broadcast all 28 matches live, will you be offering other programs related to the World Cup?
Of course! We will also offer a daily program, even on days when there are no matches. This is the FIFA World Cup 2022 Journal, which will be broadcast every day from November 20 to December 18 at 10 p.m. (Abidjan time). This program will be an opportunity to follow the progress of the competition, review the 64 matches that will be played and show the goals, dissect and analyze these sporting moments, and inspire everyone to love soccer.
Apart from this major event, is NCI's fall schedule different from last season's? Are you taking the approach of "don't change a winning team," or do you plan to "rotate" and make changes?
We're more in the "don't change a winning team" mindset, but we are recruiting "complementary players" to keep the team winning! The structure of our programming schedule is already working very well: the ratings show it, and so does our reputation. But the World Cup gave us the perfect excuse to launch what NCI was missing: sports. It took us a while to find the right moment and the right approach to talk about sports, but we got there. So we launched "NCI Sport,"
which airs every Monday at 8:30 p.m. for one hour.
This program is an opportunity to showcase, through interviews, all the key figures in Ivorian sports, as well as African and international athletes. It's the big new addition for the fall season, along with "Focus faits divers
,"
a program that is already doing very well.
For the rest, the schedule continues to feature very strong and popular programs such as "Showbuzz,"
a daily celebrity news program broadcast every day at 11:40 a.m., "Femmes d'ici"
every day at 1:05 p.m., the leading infotainment talk show "La Télé d'ici"
presented by Cheick Yvhane every evening from Monday to Friday from 6:30 p.m., and "
The Yvidero Show," th
e major entertainment show presented by Yvidero, which was a huge success last season. In terms of news, we are strengthening our major programs "NCI News
,"
our daily news program, of course, and our two flagship programs "NCI Reportages"
and "NCI360."
We are also counting on fiction, which takes up a large part of the channel's programming, with African films, blockbusters, African series, and more. We have placed a lot of emphasis on these African series in order to be as close as possible to the Ivorian people. We are convinced that this schedule will appeal to viewers.
When we see the proliferation of new programs and Ivorian fiction, we get the feeling that Côte d'Ivoire has a lot of new talent. Do you share this feeling?
Indeed, there is a lot of talent in Côte d'Ivoire. It's as if we pressed the button on the audiovisual landscape at just the right moment, because talent is flourishing. We just need to give them the means to express themselves. As a private media outlet, we want to represent these young talents who know how to express who we are. It's true that we need to give more resources to certain actors and producers to give them the means to create. But they can only express themselves if we give them the opportunity. It is our role to give them these means. NCI is also the most present and most followed Ivorian channel on social media. What is the recipe for this success?
First of all, it is the channel's very close connection to the digital world and to the lives of Ivorians. NCI's social media accounts are not simply a "showcase" for the channel, but rather a space with its own content, tailored to what the Ivorian public wants to find online, namely short, funny, and irreverent videos of high quality, stories about celebrities, and so on. We don't just recite NCI's program schedule… and that's why so many people—more than 2 million—follow us on social media
. Listen to this interview in podcast format here!