The broadcast frequencies of 15 television channels are due to expire in 2025. All candidate channels, existing or aspiring to broadcast on the TNT network, had until Wednesday, July 17 to defend their project before the Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority (Arcom). The hearings of the channels C8 and CNews, regularly accused of serving as a propaganda tool for billionaire Vincent Bolloré, were particularly scrutinized.
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” The strength of our editorial staff is our commitment to pluralism, to the balance of political speaking time and to the truthfulness of information. “On Monday July 15, in front of Arcom, Gérald-Brice Viret, director of antennas and programs for the Canal+ group, nearly made the members of the ” policeman audiovisual “. ” In recent years, Arcom has intervened on numerous occasions “, Hervé Godechot, a member of the Arcom college, reminds him coldly. For encouraging discriminatory behavior, for lack of expression of different points of view, and above all lack of honesty and rigor of information : nine times in three years… » A lot for a news channel.
In fact, C8 and CNews are, by far, the most sanctioned by Arcom. The newspaper The world did the math: forty-four warnings, formal notices and fines in 12 years, including seven this year alone. For CNews, the most recent was last September. On the set, Geoffroy Lejeune, editorial director of Sunday Journal (from the far-right newspaper Current values and whose appointment as head of the JDD after its acquisition by Vincent Bolloré had caused the departure of almost all of the historical journalists) comments on a survey on anti-Semitism in French universities. It is one of the consequences of Arab-Muslim immigration, like part of the drug trafficking, like prison overcrowding, like the abaya, like all that. ” comments Geoffroy Lejeune.
Cyril Hanouna, Olympic champion in the number of fines
Racist remarks which will earn the channel a fine of 50,000 euros for ” incitement to hatred “, ” encouragement of discriminatory behavior ” and for not having held the antenna. It is true that, not only is Geoffroy Lejeune not contradicted, but he is only interrupted by a ” Of course » encouraging from Pascal Praud. The former sports journalist, omnipresent in the media of the Bolloré galaxy, has established himself as the embodiment of the CNews slogan « Freedom of expression has never been so much talked about “.
The Olympic champion in all categories for the number of fines remains Cyril Hanouna, the star of C8. On July 10, two days before the channel’s hearing, the Council of State confirmed the record fine of 3.5 million euros imposed by Arcom on C8 for insults by the host towards LFI MP Louis Boyard.
The elected representative from Val-de-Marne, also a former columnist for “Touche pas à mon poste” (TPMP), the flagship program of C8, had committed the crime of lèse-majesté, in the eyes of his former employer, of attacking Vincent Bolloré: ” These are the same people who are impoverishing France and who are impoverishing Africa. “, Louis Boyard had said before mentioning a trial for deforestation charges against billionaire in CameroonThe attack had made Cyril Hanouna lose his temper. Such a moron “, ” shut your mouth “, ” you’re a shit “, the host and producer of TPMP had agonized him…
CNews, now France’s leading news channel
The latter has never hidden his closeness to Vincent Bolloré. When the Breton billionaire, an ultraconservative Catholic, put his media empire at the service of a rapprochement between the right and the extreme rightPascal Praud and Cyril Hanouna have become its spearheads.
During the two rounds of the early legislative elections, Cyril Hanouna, whose show on C8 has just stopped for the summer, improvises as a political journalist. Europe 1 shakes up its program schedule to offer him a tailor-made segment entitled “We are walking on our heads”, taking up the slogan of the discontent of the agricultural world. The show gives pride of place to guests from the National Rally and supporters of the “union of the right” while the host and his columnists multiply their criticisms of the New Popular Front. In one week of existence, the show will earn Europe 1 two reminders to order from Arcom.
Before the audiovisual police, the directors of the Canal+ group promised that, from now on, Cyril Hanouna’s shows on C8 would be broadcast on a delayed basis to avoid any problems. Maxime Saada, the boss of Canal+also took care to point out that CNews is now watched by 8.4 million viewers every day and that it recently took BFM TV’s place as France’s leading news channel.
It is difficult in these conditions to withdraw its approval without all the media in the Bolloré galaxy crying censorship, especially since they could continue to broadcast on the Internet. The group also recalled that it invested each year ” 2.5 billion euros in cinema, audiovisual, sport, documentaries “, ensuring that the financial balance of its advertising agency also depended on the performance of the free channels “which represent 60%” of revenues.
Translation: the group could be less generous with French creation if it were deprived of one or more of its channels. It is nevertheless difficult for Arcom not to assert its authority in one way or another. Response at the end of the month.
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