Montreal: The president of TV5 for the Americas says the future of the international French-language service hangs on its ability to leverage its reach into 120 million households and develop value-added services for the emerging world of transactional and interactive broadcasting.

To meet the challenge of an ‘enhanced’ broadcast future, Pierre Lampron says TV5 is holding a series of exploratory meetings with institutional investors, potential strategic partners in telecommunications and broadcast distribution, and with traditional distributors of products and services, which in TV5’s case could include major French-language publishers.

‘The big project for TV5 in the next one or two years is to launch a major Internet portal which manages all the promotional activity for TV5’s programming in Europe, Asia and North and Latin America,’ says Lampron, a former president of sodec whom industry insiders say has been asked to smooth the waters of TV5’s many diverse and contending interests.

According to Lampron, broadcasters will find it increasingly more expensive and difficult to maintain a favorable position on the dial as distributors demand more performance, and the best positions are handed out to the most essential services.

Lampron says TV5’s international distribution tops all other French-language broadcasters and this will emerge as the key selling point in attracting new investor and online partnerships. ‘You know nbc has not invested a single cent [in msnbc]. Their investment is in airtime and management,’ he says. On the other hand, if steps are not taken soon, Lampron says TV5’s fortunes will decline rapidly.

In this vision of the future, the transformation necessarily extends to TV5’s on-air programming as it evolves to become the broadcast component of ‘a parallel organization’ with a significant dot.com presence.

According to Lampron, enhanced broadcast services will need ‘a more necessary’ program schedule, which in TV5’s case is likely to mean more international news and variety. ‘We have to promote French cultural products and French shows and events,’ he says.

Lampron says the complementary cultural services might initially include the ability to directly buy a ticket to a show, or a book, recorded music, a holiday package or even language instruction. From that beginning, both the network and associated websites, which may have regional components, will be mandated to sell products and services in a new transactional broadcast environment characterized by e-commerce, participatory game shows and the downloading of programs, or video on demand.

Lampron says launching a parallel partnership organization represents ‘an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars.’ Meetings with potential investors have already taken place in Montreal, Toronto and Paris.

TV5 international is distributed via cable and satellite to 120 million homes over seven networks in 117 countries on five continents including Europe, North America, Asia, Africa and Latin and South America.

TV5 Quebec Canada is available in six million homes in Canada, second only to Reseau de l’Information among French-language services, and in 11 million homes in the u.s.