The heaviest fine ever imposed on a television operator. It is by a sanction of 3.5 million euros that Arcom decided, Thursday, February 9, to close the procedure initiated following the insults uttered by Cyril Hanouna against the deputy of La France insoumise Louis Boyard, November 10, 2022, on the set of the C8 program “Touche pas à mon poste”.
Following the recommendations for sanctions made by the independent rapporteur appointed in this case and received by Arcom on January 17, representatives of the channel were heard on Wednesday February 8, during a hearing conducted, at their request, at behind closed doors. It was at the end of these exchanges that in a plenary meeting, the Autorité decided on this sanction, on the grounds that the comments made by the host (” jerk “, “fucker”, ” shit “etc.) “have infringed the rights of the guest, the respect of his honor and his reputation”. The publisher, in this case C8, failed in its obligation to control the antenna, further notes the regulator.
A formal notice was also issued against the channel for not having respected its obligations in terms of honesty and independence of information. During the broadcast, estimates Arcom, Louis Boyard “was explicitly prevented from expressing a critical point of view with regard to a shareholder of the Canal+ Group, to which C8 belongs” ; conditions “which guarantee the independence of information” were therefore no longer united when Cyril Hanouna ensured that Louis Boyard did not go through with his remarks targeting Vincent Bolloré, the largest shareholder of Vivendi, owner of the Canal+ group.
“Obscene play” and “gritty comments”
At the start of the evening, the Canal+ Group indicated that it was going “implement the possible remedies as soon as possible”. Canal+ has already challenged Arcom’s decisions several times in the past, with more or less success. If the Council of State has ever ruled against the regulator (in 2019, it ordered it to reimburse C8 1.1 million euros, after a sanction of deprivation of broadcasting of one week of advertising), Canal+ does not always succeed in its appeals.
Thus, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) had announced, Thursday morning, by press release, that, following two sanctions imposed in 2017, it rejected two requests made by the chain – that the Council of State had itself already challenged.
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