End-To-End Solution Brings France’s First New DTT Channel in Almost Ten Years to Air
Broadcasting Center Europe (BCE), a leading European provider of media services, system integration and product development, has been the partner of CMI France for the successful launch of T18, a new national free-to-air channel on France’s Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) platform. The channel was launched on DTT on June 6th and the project was delivered in just five months, underlining BCE’s reputation for agility, technical excellence and trusted collaboration.
Owned by CMI France media group, T18 is a general-interest free-to-air channel offering a wide range of programming, including talk shows, documentaries, magazines, fiction, movies, culture, lifestyle and entertainment. T18 is the first new national channel to join the French DTT line-up in nearly a decade.
BCE manages end-to-end playout and broadcast services, with playout operations based in Luxembourg and distribution across France handled via a national operator. The project also incorporates secure media storage at BCE’s headquarters ISO 27001–certified datacenter and 24/7 monitoring by the company’s Network Operations Centre (NOC).
The deployment integrated a range of advanced services, including playlist delivery, multi-lingual audio, graphics integration and secure file transfers. With a 99.9% infrastructure availability rate, system redundancy and high-level broadcast standards, BCE implemented for T18 a seamless launch via infrastructure designed for long-term reliability.
Cedric Laveau, Directeur de la Technique et des Moyens de Production at T18, added: “BCE’s technical expertise and collaborative approach were key to bringing T18 to air on schedule. Their ability to adapt, support and deliver at every stage of the project made them a true partner, ensuring that we could focus on the editorial mission of our new channel.”
“Launching a new national channel is always a complex undertaking, and this project clearly highlights the strength of our teams in Luxembourg and France, and the trust we have built with T18,” said Steven Dehaen, Head of Broadcast at BCE. “Completing the deployment in just five months reflects our agility, professionalism and commitment to delivering the highest broadcast standards.”