Eurosport CEO Le Lay Speaks Exclusively to iSC on Group’s New Identity

Laurent-Eric Le Lay, Chairman and CEO of Eurosport, has taken part in an exclusive Featured Profile interview with iSportconnect amid this week’s major identity change at the company.

Eurosport unveiled yesterday, Tuesday April 5, a new brand identity across its global multimedia platform, spanning its operations in Europe, the MENA and Asia-Pacific, marking the end of an 18-month branding review with new on-air graphics, a new musical identity and a “soft” evolution of its iconic logo.

The brand review — the biggest in the group’s history — represents a major step-change for Eurosport, and is designed to create an improved and visually engaging environment to showcase Eurosport’s brand values of emotion, live action and diversity of sports.

Laurent-Eric took time out of his busy schedule to discuss this, and all things Eurosport with News Editor Martin Laurence.

Having began as a single TV channel, Mr Le Lay credits Eurosports rise to becoming Europe’s leading sports multi-media platform the group’s developmental strategy, driven by “innovation and new technology”. He added: “We have been able to anticipate these changes faster than national broadcasters and make the right development decisions to evolve from a channel to the leading pan-European multimedia platform.”

When asked of the incentive behind the new identity change Laurent-Eric said: “We believed the time was right to modernise and energise our brand to reflect our position as the leading provider of live sports in Europe. Eurosport covers the widest variety of sports of any media in Europe, over 150 different disciplines across our platforms, and we have integrated this diversity into our branding to underline that we are the brand for all sports.”

Le-Lay stressed the importance of the group’s extensive LIVE sports coverage, adding: “Live coverage is our DNA,” he said. “Live sport creates emotions and that’s what keeps our fans coming back to Eurosport,” something which he reveals is clearly reflected in the brand’s new identity.

With Eurosport based on a fine balance between the world’s most popular sports and those which are emerging, the group’s Chairman emphasised that it is the broadcaster’s role to “give visibility to new sports, if we stopped doing this, the development of new sports would be greatly hindered.” However, he confirmed that the company kept a close eye on the ratings of such events, stating: “We have staff at every level of the sports broadcast business so we are perfectly placed to ‘take the pulse’ of an event and monitor its popularity.”

Laurent-Eric had the final word on his association with iSportconnect and the incentives it brings, stating: “iSportconnect has created a place for the industry to meet, discuss and exchange, which corresponds completely to the connected world we live in today.”

To read the full interview click here – http://isportconnect.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6280&catid=52&Itemid=221