It is with great emotion and deep sadness that we learned of the death of our friend Pascal Josèphe.
We met him when he joined the CARAT group shortly after heading TF1 prior to its privatization.
His time at CARAT, where he served as vice president of CARAT TV, is less well known than his activities as a channel boss. It was he who, together with Eryck Rebbouh and Bruno Kemoun, initiated the transformation of France's largest advertising space purchasing company into a media agency with recognized TV expertise.
The launch of the CARAT Academy, an ambitious project to support young audiovisual talent of all nationalities, is one of his most notable achievements. It perfectly illustrates Pascal's personality: a visionary, he had big ideas but also knew how to persuade others to provide the means to implement them.
Each year, around twenty carefully selected winners were given carte blanche to carry out their projects while being paid and benefiting from high-level training in audiovisual professions: training at the Multimedia Institute, study trips to the United States, language and IT courses, and personalized support from a project director chosen from among the leading figures in the audiovisual industry.
After CARAT, Pascal Josèphe headed up La Cinq during the Lagardère era, then public television under the presidency of Hervé Bourges. In particular, he was the driving force behind the transformation of public broadcasting in France into France Télévisions and the godfather of many programs that have left their mark on French television.
In 1994, he created his own consulting firm, IMCA (International Media Consultants Associés), and launched a new big idea with Médiamétrie: the New On The Air (NOTA)
service, a global database dedicated to programs, marketed by Médiamétrie.
Pascal Josèphe, long-time right-hand man to Hervé Bourges, has always shown a keen interest in Africa and the Maghreb.
In 2013, he launched MGI (Media Governance Initiative), an NGO whose mission is to "promote pluralism, diversity, and quality in media programming and information" in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
He had also been a consultant for Médiamétrie for several years, providing support and advice on developing audience measurement in Africa.
This interest in Africa had enabled us, just before the health crisis, to meet and work together on a project to create several pan-African channels for a telecoms group operating in Africa.
His latest project, conceived with Rachid Harab, journalist and former member of the CSA, and Guillaume Pfister, secretary general of Public Sénat, is called Plumm.tv, a 100% video digital platform dedicated to Mediterranean popular culture, youth, and creativity.
At the request of Pascal Josèphe's family, Plumm TV will undertake to carry out a specific audiovisual initiative in his memory, aimed at promoting the values and commitments that shaped his life: humanism, openness to the world, civic action, creativity, and passing on the torch.
You can support this project by clicking on Pascal Josèphe Initiative.
Accessible, kind, and attentive, Pascal Josèphe was also a facilitator, a creative mind, a visionary, a humanist, and an undisputed television expert. He was also a friend. His sudden passing is a great loss for all who knew him.