Rodolphe Belmer, former director of Canal+ (2003-2015), will succeed Gilles Pélisson as general director of TF1. He is expected to take up this role in February 2023.
After the failure of the merger project between TF1 and M6 at the end of last week, the TF1 group announced this Friday that Rodolphe Belmer (53) would replace Gilles Pélisson as president and chief executive officer (CEO). He will initially be named CEO in late October before officially becoming CEO in February 2023, following a board meeting. “I am convinced that, together, we will be able to meet the many challenges of the new world of media and open up new prospects for development and growth for the TF1 group in the era digital »said the future head of the group, quoted in a TF1 press release.
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After working for Canal+ between 2003 and 2015, Rodolphe Belmer helped launch several successful programs such as the great newspaper of Michel Denisot and supervised the various bids for the rights to the French Football Championship together with Bertrand Méheut, in particular during the arrival of Orange and then beIN Sports on the rights market. In the spring of 2014, when Canal+ won the top three Ligue 1 2016-2020 lineups despite the new beIN threat, he tweeted minutes before the official announcement “Four More Years” (“four more years”), parodying Barack Obama during his re-election to the White House. “When I arrived as general director at Canal in 2003, Denisot, who had been in charge of the channel before me, told me: “Rodolphe, I am giving you some good advice and it is the only one I will give you: he always prefers a joke to a joke.” That day, he could have done better not to… Everyone was furious. But to me, he made me laugh”, Belmer said in The team in december 2019.
With the acquisition of Canal+ by Vincent Bolloré in 2015, Rodolphe Belmer left the group… before being replaced by Maxime Saada, who had since become number 1 on Canal+.
On the sporting side, in TF1, Rodolphe Belmer will not have a special urgency. François Pellissier, the head of sports, has in fact completed the most important file by ensuring the rights of the French national team and the next two European Championships until 2028.