Groupe KO launches PAAF, a 100% entertainment YouTube channel

The KO Group unveiled PAAF on Monday, a new 100% entertainment YouTube channel which brings together humorous podcasts and original content. The idea is to bring together talents scattered across the web in the same place in order to have a greater “strike force”, according to Louis Morissette, president of the KO Group.

The PAAF channel, an acronym for Pas Allergique Au Fun, is described by the KO group as the new headquarters of Quebec entertainment. Accessible now on YouTube, it already offers 10 contents which will be recurring appointments.

Some of them are podcasts that already existed, like Golden Top Ga parody of masculinist podcasts carried by Pascale Marineau and Magali St-Vincent.

Others are completely new concepts, like Services Mona-Pérowhere comedian Mona from Grenoble (Alexandre Aussant) comes to the aid of her friends faced with different daily tasks, always armed with her reserve of strong bottles.

In the first episode, she helps comedian Christophe Dupéré to assemble an IKEA piece of furniture with more or less convincing results, between two shooters de whiskey.

With PAAF, Groupe KO is banking on the idea that there is strength in unity, especially in a restricted market like Quebec. In the United States, the market is so big that someone alone can end up with 300,000, 400,000 people and create a business model.he explains.

But for us in Quebec, before we reach 300,000 or 400,000 people, it’s complex, so we won’t have the choice of regrouping. If everyone has their own podcast, if everyone has their own channel, it’s going to be difficult, we’re all going to starve on our own.

Why not get together? We will have a greater strike force, we will be able to talk to sponsors, we will have more income and we will be able to create more things.

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And service clés en main for podcasts

Among the podcasts that had already made their mark on the web, we also include Étienne takes you backin which Étienne Marcoux interviews guests while enjoying ramen soup with them.

We also find there Not a little proudwhere Anne-Sarah Charbonneau and Florence Nadeau receive guests connected with the community LGBTQ+as well as There’s plenty of sunshinepodcast of absurd interviews piloted by Anthony Courcy.

What is the benefit of joining PAAF for these already established podcasts? A service clés en main according to Louis Morissette.

[Les créateurs de balado] must rent their studio, booker their guests, write their podcast, do the editing, take care of the online posting and social networks. Casually, it’s a lot of little things to think abouthe explains.

There, they can concentrate on creating the podcast, we will concentrate on all the clerical surroundings. We have a studio, we’ll do the editing, we have a social media team and we have an internal sales team.

Ice bath and thanatology

Among the other original content offered by PAAF, we also find Ça put a hurrywhere Pascal Cameron invites personalities to answer general culture questions while taking a bath in ice water.

In You are going to diecomedian Étienne Marcoux literally addresses the question of life after death with thanatologist Louis-Simon Lamontagne, who reveals the underside of this profession as little known as it is essential.

Après la websérie Couple of wordscomedian Jean-Thomas Jobin reconnects with actress Julianne Côté for a new podcast entitled Encore làwhich gives voice to elders.

Kim Rusk explores in Velvet intimacy, desire and the unsaid through intelligent, human and sometimes raw confessionswe can read in a press release. Finally, comedian and actor Martin Vachon hosts Tank gamesa show that offers quizzes, charades and other fun activities.

The PAAF channel will be regularly updated with new content, which will also be available on PAAF’s audio broadcasting platforms and social networks. Ultimately, the KO group promises more than 200 original content per year.

We’re going to do other pilots in June, there’s no shortage of ideasexplains Louis Morissette.

The transformation inévitable of industry

According to the KO Group, the inauguration of the PAAF channel is part of the continuity of KO Sports, which has accumulated more than 6 million views and 7 million minutes of listening on YouTube since its launch eight months ago.

This is a model destined to grow, according to Louis Morissette, given the migration of audiences to different platforms. If you want to talk to people now, you have to be posted in two, three, four different places. If you stay with one brand, there are too many offers, too many players, you will not succeedhe explains.

If he still believes in the power of traditional television, at least for a few more years, he is of the opinion that the audiovisual industry is facing a transformation which is inevitable

20 years ago, everyone was on TV. Today, there are people who are on cable and others who are more on YouTubehe explains.

I have children aged 23, 21 and 16, I see clearly what they consume and how they do it. At some point, you have to go and talk to them where they are.

Crisis in the Quebec audiovisual sector

The PAAF channel was launched while a crisis was raging in the Quebec audiovisual sector.

Industry unions denounced, on Monday, the unprecedented pressure exerted by producer Pixcom on the Quebec Association of Image and Sound Technicians (AQTIS) so that this union deviates from the collective agreement to reduce the production costs of a series intended for TVA, property of Québecor Media.

Pixcom learned Friday that this series, Alerts : Lily-Rosederived from the drama Alertswould ultimately not see the light of day, Québecor Media judging its production cost too high. TVA also ended the series Indomitable et Come to the living roomlack of funding.

There is no longer enough money in private television today to finance the series that we used to produceexplained Nicolas Merola, the producer and president of Productions Pixcom, in a report broadcast Monday evening at Téléjournal by Patrice Roy, on ICI TÉLÉ.

Pierre Karl Péladeau, interim president and CEO of TVA Group, must also address the media on Tuesday to take stock of the precarious situation in television production.