Company
Who they are
TF1 is France’s leading free-to-air broadcaster, established in 1975. Its portfolio includes nine television channels and the recently launched TF1+ streaming platform, delivering thousands of hours of entertainment, drama, news and major sporting events. The broadcaster regularly attracts millions of viewers, with flagship news bulletins reaching around seven million people and live sporting finals drawing audiences of up to 18 million.
To support this scale, TF1 relies on Colt’s connectivity solutions. These include high-speed Ethernet Lines for transferring video content, Dark Fibre links to ensure disaster recovery readiness, and an MPLS-based IP VPN Multi-Cloud solution enabling secure access to public cloud platforms. Together, these services provide the robust infrastructure TF1 needs to deliver content seamlessly across multiple platforms and locations.
Industry context
The broadcasting industry is undergoing rapid transformation, driven by streaming demand, cloud adoption, and the need for real-time content delivery. Broadcasters must balance traditional live programming with digital platforms, ensuring reliability and scalability. For TF1, the challenge lies in meeting audience expectations for uninterrupted access to high-quality content, whether through television or streaming services. The industry also faces increasing technical demands, such as hyper-converged systems requiring high-speed data exchange and disaster recovery capabilities to safeguard continuity.
Relationship with Colt
TF1 has partnered with Colt for over two decades, building a trusted relationship that has evolved alongside the broadcaster’s needs. Colt’s responsiveness and service quality have been central to this collaboration, with TF1 valuing the close working relationship and Colt’s ability to anticipate and adapt to changing requirements. This long-standing partnership has enabled TF1 to scale its infrastructure in line with audience growth and technological shifts, ensuring continuity and innovation in its broadcasting operations.
The obstacle
TF1 faced the challenge of delivering live broadcasts and streaming services to millions of viewers while ensuring resilience and scalability. The broadcaster needed infrastructure capable of supporting high-speed content transfers from partner sites, interconnecting bandwidth-intensive systems, and providing reliable access to multiple public clouds. Additionally, disaster recovery was critical: TF1 required guaranteed continuity in the event of technical issues at its primary site. Without a robust and flexible network, TF1 risked interruptions that could impact its reputation and audience trust.
The solution
The solution for TF1 was a connectivity framework that enabled seamless access to cloud-hosted systems, rapid transfer of video content, and assured disaster recovery. Colt’s services provided the backbone, but the real achievement was that TF1 gained the ability to:
- Stream live events reliably, meeting the high availability demands of audiences during major sporting finals.
- Transfer video content at speed from partner and satellite sites to its data centres, ensuring timely broadcast.
- Interconnect hyper-converged systems, supporting the broadcaster’s growing technical requirements.
- Maintain business continuity by connecting instantly to its disaster recovery site if needed.
This solution empowered TF1 to deliver uninterrupted content across platforms, scale infrastructure in line with demand, and safeguard its operations against disruption.
The outcome
With this solution, TF1 achieved a resilient and scalable infrastructure that supports both traditional broadcasting and modern streaming. The broadcaster can now:
- Access applications and data from any location via secure cloud connectivity.
- Deliver live broadcasts to millions of viewers without interruption.
- Ensure continuity through disaster recovery readiness.
The outcome is a broadcasting environment that matches audience expectations for reliability and speed, while positioning TF1 to innovate further in digital content delivery. The partnership has enabled TF1 to evolve confidently, knowing its infrastructure can handle both current and future demands.
What they say
“When you do a live broadcast of an important event like a World Cup, you need a very high availability rate. Colt helps us ensure our infrastructure scales in line with needs and expectations.” – Nicolas Ilnicka, Director of Infrastructure, Cloud and Engineering, TF1
