And the Altice group won the bet. Committed to their merger project, the TF1 and M6 channels announced early Monday evening, February 28, that they had entered into exclusive negotiations with Patrick Drahi’s group for the sale of their TFX and 6Ter channels. As expected, M6 has also chosen to restore the digital terrestrial television (TNT) frequency of its pay channel Paris Première. However, it will continue “to exploit it on cable and satellite networks”specifies the group led by Nicolas de Tavernost in a press release.
Obliged to part with at least three chains to own together only seven as required by the regulations, the two groups still had a few weeks to designate the potential buyer(s).
But why wait, when the choice of Altice allows, in addition to complying with the texts, to mitigate certain criticisms? “This operation contributes to the competitive dynamics of the French audiovisual landscape by strengthening an established player”underlines the TF1 group.
While criticism has been raining down in recent weeks on the threat of ultra-concentration that the merger of the first two French private channels poses to the audiovisual sector, this argument for the preservation of the plurality of the landscape, even relative , may be likely to weigh in the debates still to come at the Competition Authority and the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (Arcom, former High Audiovisual Council). It is these two bodies which, after evaluating the impact of the merger – on the advertising market in particular – and its compliance with the legislation – the necessary preservation of the plurality of information – must give their assent to six to eight months here.
Altice France could change dimension
While waiting for this green light, the TF1 and M6 groups will therefore continue to fully control TFX and 6Ter until the beginning of 2023. Then, “we would become the second largest private media group in France”rejoiced Arthur Dreyfuss, the general manager of Altice France, in an internal press release broadcast Monday evening that we obtained.
Not only would the group, which already owns RMC radio, the BFMTV, RMC Sport, RMC Story and RMC Découverte channels, change in size, but it would thus constitute a block on DTT: while TFX occupies channel 11 and BFMTV 15, 6Ter on channel 22 would appear just before RMC Story (23) and RMC Découverte (24).
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