Pierre Lescure, relentlessly inquisitive reporter, man of radio and television, child of jazz, father of Les Enfants du Rock, and son of two Communist journalists, was born in 1945. He founded and ran school newspapers, and happily admits that he “never dreamed of being a fireman, only a journalist.” He was introduced to radio by Jean-Michel Desjeunes, and joined what soon became known as RTL, before continuing his journey via different radio and TV stations, such as Antenne 2, Radio Monte Carlo, and Europe 1. Pierre and his team gradually invented infotainment. “Nothing was off the table with regard to getting the news out there, as long as the information’s seriousness quotient never dipped below 51%.”

When Canal+ was founded in the early 80s, André Rousselet invited Pierre to head up the new channel. Seeing the project as the creation of a French HBO, Lescure jumped on board after a 20-minute interview. He was given a free hand to generate what was later tagged “the Canal spirit.” He called in Alain Chabat, Antoine de Caunes, Michel Denisot and other friends to join him, conveying to them his enthusiasm for a radical new tone. He defines himself as an “accelerator,” a term which comes with an explanation: “We accelerated the birth and deployment of men and women we wanted to work with, and that was what we were most proud of.” Becoming accomplices in fun, reinventing, transmitting nostalgia to boomers and ideas to the younger generation—exactly what Transmission aims to do.

Alain Kruger  Writer, journalist, producer, A.K. is a cinema buff and curator of the Louis de Funès exhibition at La Cinémathèque Française. A fine diner, he created On ne parle pas la bouche pleine on France Culture. A man of the press, he was chief editor of various magazines, including 7 à Paris, L’Autre Journal and Première, and was at the origin of the satirical weekly Infos du Monde.