In 2025, Ushuaïa TV celebrated its 20th anniversary. The opportunity for the director of the themes pole of the TF1 group, Christophe Summit, to come back for CB News on the fundamentals and the ambitions of the paid chain. While the new edition of the international documentary market opens this Monday, the Sunny Side of the Doc, in La Rochelle, also the opportunity for the manager to say a little more about the upcoming line-up of Ushuaïa TV.
CB News: The Ushuaia channel is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Are we still in the promise that had been made during its creation? What is USHUAIA TV today?
Christophe Summit : We launched this channel in March 2005. At the time, we were, and we are still I think, pioneer on what we wanted to do with it: a chain 100% devoted to the protection of the planet. This is what we are still faithful to the start of departure, with very quickly awareness that if you want to have a chance to interest viewers, you should not be anxiety -provoking, guilty. Rather, it is necessary that we offer initiatives, solutions, in short, enough to push people to engage. And the entry point of the chain which remains today very significant today is the wonder and awareness that the world, it is beautiful, that the planet, nature and the living are beautiful. We therefore become aware of all this and understand how it works. And that makes us want and need to protect what surrounds us.
CB News: But the world is often anxiety -provoking today …
Christophe Summit : I am not saying that we never have a punch documentary in which we denounce … But we rather build the chain as a chain of opening on the world, on beauty and mechanically, it works better than being 100% in anxiety and guilty.
CB News: Note during these 20 years of existence of the chain a real evolution as to the content of the programs, as for what your viewers want to see today?
Christophe Summit : Quite. This positioning turn in the way we treat things, we did it several years ago. And I think it works, if only because the chain audiences have simply progressed.
CB News: Precisely, could you tell us a word?
Christophe Summit : In 2024, it was the second historic year of the chain with +50% audience on 4+. Over 5 years, the audience share has been multiplied by 2 out of 25-49 year olds. And more than 3 million viewers look at Ushuaia TV every month.
CB News: What is a good documentary? What can make the difference on 10, 15 years, 20 with the first you have disseminated?
Christophe Summit : It depends above all on the subject that we want to send, of course. But I would say that a good documentary, and it is one of the keys to success, is the incarnation. It allows you to potentially identify with the embodying. This is why we are working more and more with youtubers, for example. Afterwards, I think there is the tone and then the wonder side. But I insist, and it is the trademark of the chain, as Commander Cousteau said, from memory: we like what we know and we protect what we like. This is what we are reaching out.
CB News: And for 20 years, each season, how do we reinvent the channel?
Christophe Summit : We have an important policy of editorialization and events. In events, we follow the planet’s agenda. We have sanctuarized some months with particular themes. For example, on June 8, it was World Ocean Day. So we created a whole cycle on the oceans. In December, December 8, it was World Climate Day. Here we too have a whole cycle around the climate. In this well -defined framework, producers and/or distributors know that we need new new content for each of these occasions. This allows us to renew content from year to year. Then we work the incarnation as I said above with known personalities, but also with associations and NGOs recognized in the world of the environment. It is not only to find stakeholders, it is also for us a fundamental means of driving content, to have experts, scientists, all the people who will ultimately bring credibility to our word.
CB News: Is that shining the chain even beyond the linear?
Christophe Summit : Completely. This is something essential in my eyes for 20 years, in order to feed the accessibility and legitimacy of our programs. Calling on an ecosystem of committed, even militant people, embedded them with us, is to be able to shine after our content through them and create a family of engagement around common values.
CB News: What is the share between your own production and what you buy for the Ushuaia TV programs?
Christophe Summit : Each year, we buy approximately 200 to 250 hours of content already carried out and we participate in production up to 150 hours. It is just under 400 hours of program that arrive every year on the antenna. It is a significant amount for a thematic chain.
CB News: What are your production methods?
Christophe Summit : We have two. For the first, we intervene in pre -enchant behind the big productions that can be made for France Télévisons or Arte, which allows us to weigh the best content that is made for these clear chains. Then, between 6 months and 1 year, we collect them for Ushuaia TV. For the second, it’s about 75 hours a year, we are in co -production and therefore in first broadcasting. They are really our babies 100%. We choose the themes that we will approach according to the needs of covering this or that event, such an anniversary of the planet’s agenda. I believe that each year we receive more than 300 production projects.
CB News: With the arrival of platforms, we have noted for a few years the rise of the documentary with important budgets. Competition becomes fierce in this area? Do you have to stand out?
Christophe Summit : Exactly. It is the quality, the unprecedented side and the exclusivity that matters today. I was talking to you above the incarnation, but there is also communication and marketing that make the environment of all this. To combat clear channels and platforms, we must be in “letting it know”. For us, actor of the “Pay TV”, it essential.
CB News: Despite the fact that you are a paid channel, you are still present on the free streaming platform of the TF1 group, TF1+?
Christophe Summit : It’s true. We are present with 200 content which is permanently available via an offer of stock of content linked to the ecological and united transition. We are brandished there “Ushuaïa TV for change”. Ideally, we would like to use them as relay to bring the subscribers to the mother channel.
CB News; Does the phenomenal success of the stainless steel youtuber with his film Kaizen, does that give ideas to the chain?
Christophe Summit : Undoubtedly. For the anecdote, we broadcast Kaizen in March during our anniversary month. It is indeed a marker for us to be the second TV broadcaster of this film broadcast at the end of 2024 on TF1 and TF1+. But beyond this replay which is “fair” a purchase for us of programs, we have developed several documentary collections with influencers. We thus broadcast in March the first opus of the collection “Immersion wild” with Yvan Kereun, a youtubeur well known in the world of animal protection. It has generated good audiences and we are already working with him on a second opus.
CB News: Does this type of production with its youtubers, is cheaper to make than a documentary you initiated?
Christophe Summit : There is no rule. It really depends on the type of documentary. One thing is certain, however, is that we are very sensitive to eco-production to limit the carbon footprint. We have already done all a job with the producers to make them aware. The message is, I think, well passed.
CB News: This Monday and until June 26 will take place the traditional international documentary market, the Sunny Side of the Doc, in La Rochelle. You will present your line-up there for the second half … Could you tell us more?
Christophe Summit : Of course. We will announce the broadcasting in September on Ushuaia TV of “Mare Nostra”, a 52 -minute that we produced with TF1 Production and Yes SIR which comes following the 3rd United Nations Conference for the Ocean, organized in Nice, who give the floor to personalities who want to make their voices heard to save the oceans. There will also be “Objectif Wild” (season 2) which will be broadcast in November. There too, a 52 minutes (co -production Ah! Production and Ushuaia TV) entitled “Face to face with the giant anaconda”. We will also have “brought in nature” (52 min) co -produced by Septia and the chain which will be visible in December. The viewer will be able to follow Marine Calmet, lawyer of the rights of nature, who prepares an appeal against the French state for faulty deficiency concerning the massive slaughter of sharks in Reunion. Finally, there will be “dear mother nature” (90 minutes) co -produced by km and Ushuaia TV and also broadcast in December. We will find 5 public or anonymous personalities (Marie José Pérec, François-Xavier Demaison, Jean Sulpice, …) through a trip to five French territories, thus sharing their wonder, their first memories, their attachment to this nature and their commitment to protect it. Also soon, a new episode from the “Emergency Terres” collection: Amazonia, threatens to biodiversity. A 60 minutes made and embodied by Guy Lagache and co -produced by Flair Production and Ushuaia TV.
