The TV and radio channels of the Altice Media group, including BFMTV and RMC, which are due to interview Emmanuel Macron on Monday, did not work for around two hours. A cyberattack was feared, but the reason would be much more futile.
Between 4:30 p.m. and 6:20 p.m. this Sunday, April 14, 2024, Altice Media no longer responded. The antennas of Patrick Drahi’s group, which will change hands with the upcoming takeover of Rodolphe Saadé’s CMA CGM group, have stopped broadcasting their usual programs. The television channels BFMTV, RMC Story, RMC Découverte, RMC Sport, BFM Business and local ones in the regions, as well as RMC radio, were affected, even if the latter resumed service earlier.
Altice Media’s TV antennas, including BFMTV, have suspended their broadcasting
“ Our teams are currently mobilized to restore broadcasting of our channels and our BFM-RMC radio stations as soon as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience caused », Wrote Altice Media in a press release.
RMC radio was the first to be operational again, but the television channels remained inaccessible a little longer, content to broadcast a promotional clip intended for this purpose on a loop.
The scale and timing of the outage are causing concern and raising fears of a cyberattack. Tensions around Israel, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the approach of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games weigh heavily in the news covered by BFMTV, in particular. Emmanuel Macron must intervene this Monday, April 15 on the antennas of BFMTV and RMC, to discuss security around the next Olympics.
A “simple” air conditioning failure?
According to our colleagues at Parisianthe Altice building, located in Paris, suffered a serious air conditioning failure, leading to the overheating of the final control room and, in fact, the shutdown of the antennas.
We had to give the servers time to cool down before completely restarting the machine. If a return of broadcasting was hoped for 6 p.m., the programs resumed a few moments later.
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