One year after the launch of its newsletter Thread, Noovo Info draws up a positive assessment of its beginnings in the media world, believing that it has fulfilled its promises to inform differently and to attract a younger audience. Experts and ex-employees, however, believe that there is still a long way to go for the chain to really stand out from its competitors.
“I saw new faces, unusual reports, familiarity that makes the set more convivial. But the promise of the info otherwise, we have not completely achieved it. […] When you want to make a news bulletin format, the news of the day is necessarily essential, and it’s difficult to do it differently” observes Alain Saulnier, media expert and former director general of information for Radio-Canada.
On March 29, 2021, Bell Media’s general-interest channel launched its news bulletin Noovo with great fanfare. Thread with the promise of offering an alternative to TVA Nouvelles and Radio-Canada. To achieve this, longer stories, different topics and angles, diverse voices, more regional content, and a more laid-back style of animation were advertised.
I saw new faces, unusual reports, familiarity which makes the set more convivial. But the promise of the info otherwise, we have not completely achieved it.
“We have been very faithful to our promises, maintains in an interview the general manager, Jean-Philippe Pineault. Honestly, every day we have examples of stories and ways of telling things that are clearly different from our competitors. He gives as an example the coverage of the war in Ukraine by the journalist Louis-Philippe Bourdeau who went to Poland and delivered more “immersive” and more “intimate” reports than the competition, according to him.
Changes were necessary at the beginning to find the right tone and the right formula, recognizes Mr. Pineault. The rhythm of the programs has been modified so that we can tackle more news. “People watching us want most of the day’s news. We have found a balance: we continue to stand out with our different stories, but we have integrated a lot of the hot news of the day. »
Departures
A choice that nevertheless prompted some to leave the news channel even before it blew its first candle. Four ex-employees who agreed to speak to the Homework on condition of anonymity, for fear of reprisals, said they were disappointed by the final product, which was no longer so different from the others.
“Quickly, we fell back into old journalistic reflexes in television. We covered what others covered. […] We don’t “challenged” not so often to get the different angle. It was not for lack of desire, but for lack of time and resources [humaines] “says one of them.
“What I found the most difficult was that digital was behind television, it was not developed in parallel as promised, adds another ex-employee. […] For me, doing news differently also meant producing reports for the website. But… we didn’t have any. Initially announced for September 2021, the noovo.info website only saw the light of day in January 2022.
Some of the ex-employees consulted do not understand why the digital component was not launched earlier, when their former employer clearly showed its desire to reach a younger audience.
“Young people are on the Internet and on social networks. They no longer have this notion of meeting in front of the television to get information, they do it anytime on their telephone,” adds Alain Saulnier. The site should have been launched at the same time as the news bulletins, according to him, in order to give longer life to the reports, but also to make the Noovo Info “brand” known more quickly. “It might have encouraged more people to watch their newscasts, even in catch-up. »
“Launching everything at the same time would not have been a good idea, we would have been scattered. […] We had to take the time to find ourselves, see what proposal we wanted to offer, develop something of quality,” replies Jean-Philippe Pineault.
Audience response
Bell Media did not want to reveal to the Homework the ratings of its news service. The channel nevertheless confirmed the accuracy of the data recently broadcast by ProjectJtaken from the Numéris winter-spring 2022 surveys.
Thereby, The Wire 5 p.m. reached just over 60,000 people during this period, compared to half a million viewers for TVA Nouvelles at the same time. For the 10 p.m. editions, just over 75,000 viewers watched Thread, while 450,000 people chose TVA Nouvelles and more than 300,000 others Newscast of Radio Canada.
“Our biggest challenge is to get people to come and see what we do and that we become their new habit,” recognizes Jean-Philippe Pineault. However, he insists on a 37% increase in the number of their viewers in the 25-54 age group since the launch.
The information service has also succeeded in attracting a younger audience, he argues. The viewers of Wire 5 p.m. are on average 44 years old, while the Téléjournals of Radio-Canada at 6 p.m. and TVA Nouvelles at 5 p.m. reach an audience aged 60 on average.
The strong presence of Noovo Info on social networks also helps to reach the younger generations according to Mr. Pineault. It is moreover by choice that the energy was put on the development of an audience on these platforms before releasing a website.
According to data compiled by UQAM journalism professor Jean-Hugues Roy, Noovo Info lags behind its competitors in subscribers and average views per video posted on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
“It takes time for people to become attached to a medium,” underlines Mr. Roy. Noovo Info has not yet had time to create this link, either on television or on social networks. […] It will be interesting to redo the comparison exercise next year. »