If the allocation of television frequencies was part of a prime time competition, the performance of Nicolas de Tavernost, Wednesday, February 15 before the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (Arcom, ex-CSA), would have probably won the public vote. Challenged in his wish to obtain for M6 a new authorization to broadcast on TNT by the businessman Xavier Niel (individual shareholder of Le Monde), the chairman of the management board of the channel opened his hearing with an anthology of spades at the address of his adversary, heard a few hours earlier in the same enclosure.
“Twenty-five million French people receive us today via DTT, including 10 million who have no other option. (…) Who is ready to deprive this public of our programs? », attacked the boss of the chain which prides itself on being the favorite of the French. Emphasizing the exemplary nature of M6, which has rarely failed in the obligations to which it has been bound since 1987: “Promises have been kept. You will tell me, it is normal; yes, but it is rare. I have heard promises of it in thirty-six years: where is the chain Number 23, champion of diversity, and yet provided with very rich sponsors? » – Xavier Niel was a shareholder in the late TNT channel that was sold too quickly, now RMC Story. Skeptical or realistic, as you will, the patriarch of the French audiovisual landscape then decided: “An ambitious general-interest channel cannot succeed alone. It was perhaps possible thirty-six years ago, it is no longer possible today, and even less tomorrow.. M6 or chaos!
Advantages on both sides
But the Arcom has nothing to do with the applause meter. To determine which of M6 or “SIX”, the channel imagined by Xavier Niel, will have the radioelectric resource put into play, the Authority must base its choice on the “interest” projects submitted to it, and compliance with imperatives such as “safeguarding pluralism”, “the diversification of operators” or even the “need to avoid abuse of a dominant position and practices that impede the free exercise of competition”. In fact, the arrival of a new entrant would fulfill these conditions.
The Authority must also take into account “experience acquired in communication activities” ; the thirty-six years of existence of M6 clearly weigh in the balance, but Xavier Niel is not a beginner (his group with 50 million subscribers is present in the media, telecommunications and digital) . The ex-CSA must also worry “commitments in terms of volume and genre in terms of production and distribution” of programs. However, the challenger project proposes to dedicate 16% of its turnover to creation (compared to 15% for M6), 14% of which will go to heritage creation (11.5% for M6), 4% to cinema (compared to 3.5% for M6).
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