The story
Founded by Francis Bouygues in 1987.1
The history of TF1 traces back to 1975, when the Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (ORTF) was split into 7 successor institutions. Allegedly to provide competition for Canal+, La Cinq and M6, the French government decided to privatize TF1. In April 1987, the construction conglomerate Bouygues won the resulting auction for the sale of TF1, ahead of the Lagardère Group. On 16 April, Francis Bouygues, the president of Bouygues, presented a check of three billion francs to the government, completing the privatisation of TF1.
In June 2009, TF1 Group agreed to buy the NT1 channel from AB Groupe, as well as AB's 40% stake in TMC Monte Carlo (which would take TF1's total stake to 80%). The deal was cleared by France's competition authority and subsequently by the Council of State in December 2010, dismissing an appeal by Métropole Télévision. As part of the same transaction, the group raised its stake in WB Television to 49%.
On 21 December 2012, Discovery Communications (now known as Warner Bros. Discovery) purchased a 20% stake in Eurosport from TF1 Group for €170m. Discovery had the option to increase its stake to 51% in 2014. If Discovery exercised that option, TF1 Group was entitled to then exercise a put option over the remaining 49% that would see Discovery take full control. On 22 July 2015, Discovery agreed to acquire TF1's remaining 49% stake in the venture. Discovery also took a 20% share in TV Breizh, Histoire, Ushuaia TV and Stylia – for €14m, with the option of increasing its shareholding to 49% in each channel in 2014. Discovery and TF1's production arm will also work together on making programmes.
TF1 Group's Newen agree to acquire a majority stake in Reel One of Montreal in July 2019. Current owner and CEO Tom Berry would retain a minority stake in the company.
In December 2017, the TF1 group finds an agreement with the Canal+ group, The MYTF1 service and thus restored on CANAL decoders and on myCanal and also the control of live (Start-Over) is possible on myCanal. A similar episode occurs in September 2022.
On 18 May 2021, TF1 Group and M6 Group announced that both companies have begun negotiations for a proposed merger. On 16 September 2022, the merger was officially abandoned due to the conditions ordered by the antitrust French authorities.
Some of its channels were affected by an outage on 19 July 2024.
On 23 November 2024, Sky News reported that CVC Capital Partners, TF1, RedBird Capital Partners, All3Media, Mediawan and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts had been linked to a potential takeover bid for ITV plc and a possible break-up of core assets such as ITV Studios and ITVX. This could see TF1 name launched in UK.
From Wikipedia’s article on TF1 Group, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4