week 23 the RTL Group intranet Newsletter 5 June 2008 Moving forward How M6 presents the Euro 2008 United Kingdom UEFA Cup football on Five TalkbackThames launches Toyboize Hungary RTL Klub most influential in media industry The Netherlands The first news channel for mobile phones France Axel Duroux, Knight of the Legion of Honour COVER: Estelle Denis, Piere Ménès, Thierry Roland (from left to right) Kingdom FA Cup football on Five kbackThames launches Toyboize y L Klub most influential in media industry therlands 2 week 23 the RTL Group intranet Official broadcaster of Euro 2008 M6 Group is back on the ball in Euro 2008, this time broadcasting 15 of the tournament’s mat- ches, starting on Sunday, 8 June. Official logo of EURO 2008 France - 5 June 2008 Euro 2008 will include M6’s first ever broad- with Dominique Grimault and Pierre Ménès. casts of games played by the French team. Thierry Roland and former defender of the “This is a landmark of which it is particularly French national team Franck Leboeuf will com- proud”, said Jérôme Bureau, the channel’s ment the matches. M6 will also be hosting a director of information and news magazines. website dedicated to the event and providing a M6 loves football anyway, and is more enthu- service for mobile users. M6’s digital ‘little sis- siastic than ever about ‘the beautiful game’ ter’, W9, will be airing its own 52-minute daily now that it will be exclusively broadcasting magazine and broadcasting two games live. some of the games featuring Les Bleus. “Euro 2008 is the top footballing event of the year. To give the tournament the airtime it deserves, This tournament is even harder to win than the M6’s coverage of Euro 2008 will comprise two World Cup, because there’s not a single ‘easy’ daily programmes: le Journal de l’Euro, which game or clash of secondary importance”, will last between 5 and 10 minutes, and 100% Bureau added. Euro, a special live magazine lasting a full hour with many special guests. Estelle Denis has Groupe M6 ,which also owns the French foot- already laid M6’s cards on the table by promi- ball club Les Girondins de Bordeaux, shelled sing that “if the French team doesn’t do well, out 50 million euro to secure the broadcasting we won’t pull any punches; and if it performs rights. Nicolas de Tavernost, Chairman of the admirably, naturally we’ll be really fired up, Board of Groupe M6, explains his strategy for adopting an equally forthright tone, with no investing in football as follows: “Football is the beating about the bush. I also hope we’ll have leading televised sport in France. This is why as much fun as we did during the World Cup”. we have made two kinds of investment in it, The programme will air live every day during the firstly by acquiring broadcasting rights and second or third part of the evening schedule secondly by acquiring a football club that has and will provide off-the-cuff reactions to the turned out a profit for the past 9 years. Football latest football news, adopting the very frank is still a loss-making proposition on television, approach that will characterise the programme. but a general-interest channel like M6 has an obligation to present all genres in its schedule. The website will offer fans the chance to keep From time to time, we have to run the risk of up to the minute by reporting any news and making a loss if we want to move forward. The major events from the tournament. Internet European Championship is tremendously users can also look forward to broadcasts of important to our image”. matches on the Web, courtesy of Groupe M6, as well as special programmes featuring aerial Consequently, M6 has thought long and hard footage, providing full information on the day’s about how to make Euro 2008 a truly special events in the competition including news about experience for football fans by enabling them teams, players and fixtures, information files, to experience the thrills and spills of the tourna- articles, statistics and a photo gallery. Further ment “as if they were there”. The channel will broadcasting a road movie by Thierry Roland air two live programmes every day, presented and Franck Leboeuf from Switzerland and by the popular sports journalists Estelle Denis Austria covering training schedules, containing 3 week 23 the RTL Group intranet asks Estelle Denis to tidy up his office, shut the door and return home. A second, equally humorous and unconventional trailer shows how M6’s football experts - who are positively chomping at the bit waiting for the feast of football to get under way - have trans- formed parts of the channel’s headquar- ters, including its production depart- ment, offices, stairways and even lifts into one big football pitch. The trailers all sign off with the French byline Une http://euro2008.m6.fr/ chose est sûre, le 7 juin ils seront prêts interviews and footage of supporters, and (One thing is certain: Come 7 June, they’ll relaying the atmosphere at the venue hosting be ready). the game in question. Bloggers haven’t been forgotten either. They will be allotted their own A brief rundown on the team presenting 100% space to exchange their thoughts with the Euro and le Journal de l’Euro : channel’s football specialists. It’s also worth noting that M6 Mobile by Orange, the Group’s One presenter... mobile phone service, will be offering its subs- * Estelle Denis cribers access to a special Euro 2008 dossier. Euro 2008 will also mark her tenth anniversary as a sports journalist. She is definitely passio- To whet viewers’ appetite, M6 has put together nate about the game. When she was younger some really tasty Euro 2008 trailers. One of she played as a defender...in a boy’s team and these fun clips shows the team that presents is a seasoned TV professional who cut her 100% Foot trying to break into the office of teeth at France Télévisions, then Infosports, French team selector Raymond Domenech – TPS Star, TF1 and LCI before joining M6 in who is none other than the husband of Estelle 2005, where she fronts 100% Foot. Denis both in the clip and in real life – to try and Since mid-February 2008, Estelle has also get their hands on the list of the 23 players cho- been presenting 100% Mag, a daily information sen to make up France’s Euro 2008 squad. But magazine broadcast by M6, which is netting then the phone rings and Raymond Domenech the channel phenomenal ratings during access prime time. (From left to right) Pierre MENES, Dominique GRIMAULT, Jean Philippe DOUX (assis), Jerome de VERDIERE, Jean Marc FERRERI, Estelle DENIS (seated), Thierry ROLAND, Frank LEBOEUF 4 week 23 the RTL Group intranet ...two pundits... * Dominique Grimault Dominique has been a 100% Foot pundit since To mark the event, M6 has put together a 2005, having started out as a reporter, then a communication campaign based around senior reporter working both for the print media the theme Pour être derrière les Bleus, il for 18 years as well as radio and television faudra être devant M6 (Viewers wanting to (TF1, La Cinq and Antenne 2). He’s one of back France will have to settle down in France’s top football experts, being the former front of M6). The multimedia campaign editor-in-chief of L’Equipe (the leading French will entail 3,000 posters being put up in daily ahead of Le Monde), and has more than Paris and the French provinces until 11 50 works on sport to his name. He has gained June, ads in various print media, inclu- recognition and is highly regarded for his plain- ding L’Equipe, Le Parisien, Le Monde, speaking approach. Direct Matin and Direct Soir, and a banner on the façade of M6’s headquarters in * Pierre Ménès Neuilly sur Seine. He worked for L’Equipe for 21 years and publi- shed a humorous anthology entitled le Dictionnaire absurde du foot (The Absurd Dictionary of Football) in which the entry for ‘club chairman’ states that he is also known as RTL group companies are big suppor- “Mr Moneybags”, possibly “a rather successful ter of the Euro 2008. business mogul who went into football to get his face known, only to find himself wading Check their websites: from hassle to hassle through the brown stuff”. He’s living proof that M6’s pundits really do ‘say Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland it how it is’. http://sport.rtl.de/fussball/euro2008.php ...and two commentators RTL-TVI, Belgium * Thierry Roland http://www.rtlinfo.be/sport/static/view/eu He started his career working in ORTF’s sports ro2008/EURO2008 department back in 1955. In 1962 he made his debut as a World Cup commentator. Today he’s RTL Netherlands an unparalleled commentator, with a born gift http://www.rtl.nl/actueel/rtlnieuws/ek2008/ for finding just the right turn of phrase. His voice is instantly recognisable to any football Radio Berlin, Germany fan and he’s famous for coming out with such http://82.98.97.105/ gems as “Well, there are two people who defi- nitely won’t be spending their holidays toge- RTL Radio France ther”; “Brought down like a grouse in full flight”; http://www.rtl.fr/dossier/93498/1/euro- “Having seen that, we can die peacefully”; or 2008.html (describing a referee and his two assistants) “Rarely have I seen such a useless trio.