• Can you tell us about your career path?

I arrived as an AST in my 3rd year BBA and immediately spotted the media chair. Once I'd finished that, I did an internship at France Culture in the fiction department. Ever since I was a kid I've always had a passion for entertainment and creation in general and, in radio drama, there was a great mix between radio broadcasting and in-house production. I was able to acquire a strategic vision of the media while at the same time being involved in the creative phase, so I was able to develop skills in script development, editorial choices and script project support... 

I then went on to do a Master 2 at the Sorbonne, dedicated to writing and development for film, television and radio. At the same time, I worked on a work-study basis at BBC Radio France, which is a branch of BBC Studio and whose aim is to develop both adaptations of English programmes for France and to create original programmes that reflect the BBC's DNA for the French market. 

Finally, I joined Slate and Initial Studio. Boris Razon, my Master 2 teacher who is now ARTE's editorial director and formerly Slate's managing editor, suggested that I work there and I've been there for a year and a half now.

• What do you like about your current job? What are your main tasks?

I'm currently working for Slate.fr and Initial studio (a Slate subsidiary) and in parallel I continue to do assignments for France culture.

Slate: 

I work with the Managing Director, I carry out media development missions, I try to make Slate's strike force available to brands and institutions. In practical terms, I look for partners who are likely to speak to Slate's readership, and then I build a whole team around the project. 

Originally, Slate consisted mainly of articles and, from 2016, podcasts. Today, in order to reach our audience, we use the written word, podcasts and photos. Ultimately, I'm responsible for making the most of Slate's skills and strengths. 

Podcasts

You have to realise that the podcast market is still a bit of a no man's land and is only just beginning to take shape. In particular, there is a huge amount of work to be done on the status of podcast authors (security), as well as the challenge of monetisation. At Slate, we have around fifteen recurring podcasts, and my aim is to have sales people who can sell advertising space to make the podcast profitable (bearing in mind that today, no podcast company is really profitable). 

Two models for advertising in podcasts:

1/ Advertising at the beginning and/or end of the podcast (in-house advertising department, finding advertisers, emergence of podcast advertising departments)

2/ Sponsoring: a more financially advantageous system, with a brand sponsoring the podcast and almost embodying it (ad integrated into the programme and it is the presenter who mentions the sponsor).

I'm working on these two issues with the management team and the CEO. It's quite exciting to see that podcasts are becoming more and more credible for big advertisers, even though we're still talking about micro-audiences (Transfert: 1 million listens per month, for example). Brands have realised that podcasts are a fabulous place for advertisers. The listener actually accepts advertising in podcasts quite well. 

Initial Studio:

Initial Studio was created by the CEO of Slate at the time (Boris Razon), with the idea that the podcast would succeed if it reached a wide audience (the subjects covered in the podcasts) because, let's face it, podcasts are currently aimed more at a Parisian audience. Indeed, podcasts were created to meet the need for a different kind of forum. But we're reaching the limits of that logic, and Slate wanted to deliver high-frequency, low-cost content that would reach a wider audience. 

One of the new ideas for reaching a wider audience would be to adapt audiovisual programmes already produced into podcasts, mainly documentaries. In this way, podcasts would provide a new window of opportunity for these TV programmes. The aim is to negotiate programme rights and build coherent editorial offerings (e.g. Justice en direct, a France 2 programme). 

Ultimately, the aim is to identify formats that at first sight are designed for images but which work well for audio, in order to produce audio content that can be listened to directly by as many people as possible.

• In the course of your career, you have chosen to focus on companies that broadcast new ways of informing and educating yourself (podcasts, Slate, etc.). Do you think that the future of information lies in these new formats?

Yes, because I believe that no matter how you broadcast, content is king. But new media have the capacity to try things out and focus their output on what interests people most.

In traditional media, we have blinkers that prevent us from breaking out of the traditional patterns. The new media are more content-led and have the ability to address and give a voice to everyone.

However, this is not to say that traditional media are doomed, but there is no doubt a need for a global ecosystem and a certain agility to reach out to all audiences and adapt its content strategy to the different distribution channels.

• Do you think that podcasts will continue to be aimed at a young audience, or will the target audience and strategy evolve to keep pace with changes in consumer habits?

There is a real issue around the age of podcast listeners. The first hurdle to overcome concerns accessibility to podcasts for all. After a certain age, people don't necessarily know where and how to listen to podcasts. So while the content may be suitable for everyone, it doesn't make much sense if people don't know how to access it. Some major groups are currently thinking about producing their own podcasts, and they could make a major contribution to the 'evangelisation' of podcasts and have the capacity to help a wide audience understand how to access them.

As far as young people are concerned, who 'consume' a lot of podcasts, it has finally become a habitual medium that I think will remain with them for a long time (transport...).

Surprisingly enough, some niche subjects are finding their way to an audience: business podcasts, entrepreneurship (+500K listens per month), these are surprises that you wouldn't necessarily expect. In reality, the key lies in creating an intimate bond with the audience, and Binge and Slate are pretty good at that! The downside of this strong connection with the listener is that they will sometimes want to choose the next subjects covered, and they won't hesitate to express their dissatisfaction if a particular episode doesn't suit them.

• In terms of the podcast audience, how do you go about collecting data?

As far as Slate is concerned, we practice multi-distribution of our podcasts, i.e. we share them on all possible listening platforms. But because we're not in a closed environment, it's difficult to collect information. More and more companies are specialising in audio tech and helping us to get more accurate data. In terms of information, we now have the gender, age, geographical distribution and listening behaviour of listeners.  

The real crux of the matter is our relationship with the major streaming platforms (Spotify, Deezer, Amazon, Apple), which have much more detailed data at their disposal. These platforms have a goldmine of 'free' content in their hands, and it's they who decide which podcasts to showcase. Unfortunately, they don't share the data with us. 

We are currently experimenting with paid podcasts because there is little feedback on this format, even if what has been done in France doesn't work at the moment. The idea is to offer an ad-free podcast plus bonus episodes, exclusive content and so on. We've been thinking about a new strategy: making the offering more editorial by offering channels dedicated to certain subjects and exclusive content. We are aware that this represents a complementary window of opportunity, but it will never replace the initial offering.

• What have you learnt from your experience as an entrepreneur (Cultopie)? Do you think it's more difficult to be an entrepreneur in the cultural sector? What role did The Media House play in this adventure?

Cultopie was a project dedicated to the performing arts, and it's complicated to set up a business in that field. We had 4 different profiles: an actor and director, an entrepreneur, a lawyer and myself. 

The basic premise was that we'd realised that cultural events were fairly compartmentalised and that there was a lack of space for all the arts to come together in another venue, for example fashion shows with opera singers... We've put on exhibitions, we've had a role in producing shows but we wanted to go further by enabling artists to finance themselves and not be dependent on a tour that prevented them from doing unusual things. We even thought about a way for these artists to finance themselves through contactless payment or how to support them in their marketing communications or administrative procedures. We often had brilliant young people being exploited in their contracts. 

Very quickly, however, a central question arose: 2 people wanted to resolve these two issues simultaneously and 2 others wanted to decide whether to become a support solution for artists or to operate as a live performance production organisation. This proved too energy-consuming, especially as we were disorganised. The cultural industry is a very technical environment, you have to understand all the subsidy schemes and so on. I gradually lost pleasure in doing it and we finally decided to stop. 

The Media House helped us to better understand the challenges of the sector and gave us a clearer picture of the project and our aspirations. In any case, it was a super-stimulating experience that enabled us to deconstruct our clichés about the sector and meet some inspiring people.

• What drew you to the chair and what did you get out of it?

I had studied the different courses offered by the Chair, and I found that there was great diversity and a global approach to the cultural sector. What's more, I really liked all the students in the Chair: we shared a common passion but we all had very different profiles. Finally, the professional meetings we were lucky enough to have were fabulous, we had the chance to meet experts in each sector.

• What's your best memory of the Chair?

The trip to Los Angeles is of course a very fond memory. It gave me an idea of the power of the media and broadcasting in the US. When you're a chair, you get the impression that anything is possible, that it's just a question of being passionate, digging into a subject and surrounding yourself with the right people to get started. 

In Los Angeles, we met some French people who work at Universal and all the fantasies I had about French people working in the US turned out to be true.

• What advice would you give to students in the Chair or those interested?

I'm going to give you a simple but true answer: be curious! I've learnt from experience that it's easy to pick up the phone and talk to professionals to find out if their industry is right for you. Very often through my work, I realise that it's complicated to form an opinion, especially as the sectors evolve very quickly. 

You just have to go out and get the information. What's more, as a student it's easy to take these steps, and the Chair makes it even easier. Once you're working, you don't have as much time to find meaning in what you're doing, so don't hesitate to do it now.

• What question would you have liked to have been asked?

I always ask myself what I would have done if I hadn't done the chair. I don't have an answer to that question, but there are so many times when I find interesting sectors or professions that perhaps my career path would have been different without this academic experience.