Grace Loubassou, Head of Institutional Relations, is responsible for all activities related to institutions, associations, and stakeholders in the various African countries where the CANAL+ group operates.
Can you tell us about the "CANAL+ University" project?
CANAL+ University is a traveling training project aimed at encouraging skills transfer on the African continent in the media and audiovisual sector.
Journalists, directors, editors, and production team professionals from Canal+ International are sent to our subsidiaries across the continent to provide training to professionals in the field.
What are the ambitions behind this initiative?
As part of the CSR objectives set by Corporate Management, we want to address issues related to youth, women, and the evolution of the audiovisual sector on the continent. To address the latter, we have chosen the training model.
As a player in the audiovisual landscape, a television distributor, but also a program creator, we have noticed that locally, film and series proposals sometimes need to be reworked. Doing this rework from Paris did not make sense. Local audiovisual professionals need to have all the tools at their disposal to be able to create quality content and sell it to players such as CANAL+ or national and international channels. In light of this, we decided to launch CANAL+ University.
What model was used to design the training courses?
Media and audiovisual professionals on the continent have expressed a wide range of training needs. To respond to these needs, we thought about how we could best add value. At CANAL+, we have professionals who can pass on their skills.
It should not be forgotten that training is expensive and that it is not really part of our DNA; a player such as CFI is already active in this field. Nevertheless, we can draw on our in-house talent, whether journalists, production managers, or anyone else we work with. The professionals we ask to lead training sessions are delighted to be able to visit the continent and share their expertise on the various professions.
The concept is to send an intern to one of our subsidiaries, at the request of a subsidiary, with the help of a local partner (a television channel, a production company, an organization such as a ministry or the equivalents of the CNC or the CSA) who will assist us in our efforts on the ground, particularly in recruiting candidates.
In general, the participants in the training courses are not novices but rather professionals who already work in the field and wish to improve their skills. The journalists we have trained are already employed by local channels, and the professionals we send there are therefore delighted to be able to train their peers.
For example, in Gabon, where national television stations do not have broadcasting rights for soccer competitions, some journalists have expressed a need to know how to comment on events and cover sports news without necessarily having the images.
After launching in 2019, what conclusions can you draw today from this initiative?
Thanks to our training courses, we can provide refresher courses and immerse ourselves in the realities on the ground to improve performance. It's a win-win situation for all stakeholders: consumers are satisfied because the programs they broadcast will be of better quality, internal staff improve their skills, and internal trainers can go out into the field to share their experience and learn about other realities.
This initiative also allows these professionals to network and create new collaborations. For example, we have a participant in Congo who delivered a documentary that was purchased by the station.
Through this initiative, we want to position ourselves as a "responsible" player in the audiovisual sector. Every company is trying to position itself in terms of CSR. Training is a real challenge on the continent, it concerns the audiovisual sector and we are good at it, it will enable us to be even more effective in our business.
These training courses can also provide a pool of professionals with whom to collaborate, especially as these professionals will be trained in the "CANAL+ method." In fact, we are already starting to work with several of them.
In which countries do you provide training?
We have done so in Gabon, where journalist Joëlle Ededeghe Ndong, who presents the program "Bonjour Santé," was sent as part of a professional seminar that allows audiovisual professionals from Central Africa to meet and discuss professional issues. For one week, this journalist conducted training with professionals.
We continued:
- in Mali with ORTM journalists for two weeks
- in Benin with training in acting at the request of a subsidiary. The training was provided by Beninese director Sylvestre Amoussou.
- in Congo-Brazzaville at the request of the Ministry of Communication for the national channel with the help of star journalist Charles Mbuya.
In a few weeks, we will continue in Niger. We will start 2020 with Guinea and Senegal.
As for Côte d'Ivoire, we had already launched several initiatives such as training for JRI (journalist-reporter-interviewer) and Afrique au féminin (Africa for women). For CANAL+ University, we have therefore chosen to expand into other countries.
However, we will be developing a screenwriting training project in 2020 for the A+ Ivoire channel's programs.
For Senegal, too, where production levels are high, particularly in terms of series, we have identified our local partner, Oumar Sall from Cinekap, producer of Mati Diop's film Atlantique.
What are the prospects?
It's barely been a year since we launched CANAL+ University, and we're still in the testing phase: we're testing all types of training courses based on demand.
For the moment, we are seeing a real need and demand for training for journalists. We have selected journalists from Canal+ Afrique to deliver all of these training courses. In the future, we will also bring in in-house professionals from CANAL+ France, such as the director of documentaries, to lead masterclasses in Dakar. More technical training will also be organized in Senegal, led by an artistic director.