Altice Chairman Patrick Drahi arrives for a hearing before a parliamentary committee on media concentration in the Senate, in Paris on February 2, 2022 (AFP/STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN)
Patrick Drahi, owner and founder of the telecoms and media group Altice, assured Wednesday that he had “no objection” to the merger between TF1 and M6, adding that he would like to take advantage of this consolidation operation to “strengthen” himself. .
“I have no objection to the merger between TF1 and M6, I find it quite logical. I cannot say that I am for consolidation in the telecoms market and against in the media market”, declared the owner of the operator SFR and the BFMTV-RMC channels, before a Senate inquiry committee.
“I am in favor of it, I would have liked to play a role in it because my group is small, even if I have the first news channel (BFMTV, editor’s note). In terms of economic weight in the media in France, I am very proud to have gone from 190 to 350 million euros (in turnover) but it is only 350 million where TF1 makes around 2 billion euros and M6 between 1.5 and 1.6 billion euros,” he added.
The proposed merger between TF1 and M6, the two main private audiovisual groups in France, is subject to the authorization of several regulators, including the Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority (Arcom) and the competetion.
To be able to carry out this project, TF1 and M6 will have to sell several of their channels or give up a digital terrestrial television (DTT) frequency to comply with the regulations, according to which a group can hold a maximum of seven channels.
“I would like, in this reconstitution, to be able to strengthen my group from an economic point of view”, warned Mr. Drahi.
“If I can salvage what’s going to fall from the tree, I’ll do it. Besides, it would be better for an entrepreneur who’s been a little bit successful to take care of it rather than someone coming out of nowhere, who’s going to crash in three years,” he added.
– Telecoms, a consolidation to come “one day or another” –
Also questioned by the senators on a possible merger of SFR with the Iliad group, parent company of the operator Free, to initiate a movement of consolidation on the French telecom market, Mr. Drahi formally denied.
“There is no merger strategy,” he said, while the French market is made up of four major players with Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Free.
“I tried everything in the consolidation of the French telecom market. I did not succeed but I like to insist in life. I am not in a hurry, I think it will happen one day or another. “, he continued.
“It would be better for two French operators to come together one day so that the whole thing is stronger, rather than seeing one of the four French operators end up in the hands of + I don’t know who +”, abroad, a- he still pleaded.
Businessman Vincent Bolloré arrives at the Senate for his hearing by a commission of inquiry into media concentration, on January 19, 2022 in Paris (AFP / Thomas SAMSON)
After Vincent Bolloré (Vivendi) and Bernard Arnault (LVMH), other press and audiovisual magnates will come before this commission of inquiry in the coming days, which is due to report in March on the economic and democratic consequences. media hyper-concentration.
The hearings of Arnaud Lagardère (JDD, Paris Match, Europe 1) and Xavier Niel (owner of Iliad, shareholder of Le Monde) have been postponed to February 17 and 18 respectively.
© 2022 AFP
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