In the race for television audiences in France, CNews has become the number one news channel for the first time, we learned this Monday, June 3. A small victory for a channel regularly sanctioned by Arcom, the media regulatory authority.
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Ten days ago, Arcom, the regulatory authority for audiovisual and digital communication, imposed a fine of 50,000 euros on the CNews channel, due to negative stereotypes attributed to a population group. During a segment of the show Time for the Pros 2, broadcast on September 28, 2023, the director of JDDGeoffroy Lejeune, affirmed that anti-Semitism and prison overpopulation were consequences of “ Arab-Muslim immigration “.
This sanction is the latest in a long series of failures by the channel to fulfill its obligations, such as information pluralism or control of the channel. Repeated incidents and complaints which could compromise the reallocation of its frequency to DTT. The selection process is underway. However, it was during this same period that she placed herself at the top of the news channel audiences. A victory for the protégé of the Canal+ group, controlled by Vivendi, belonging to conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré.
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CNews is thus ahead of its rival BFMTV, soon to be owned by another billionaire, the shipowner Rodolphe Saadé. Although it is regularly boycotted by left-wing figures who accuse it of being positioned on the extreme right, CNews, its verbal slippages and its excesses appeal to a growing part of the public. It recorded 2.8% audience share (PDA) last month, compared to 2.7% for BFMTV, according to figures from Médiamétrie. LCI comes third with 1.7% of PDA, and the public channel Franceinfo, last with 0.7%.
“ Historical », greeted the leading channel on the social network “ We are a mirror of society. Our progress has been constant and has accelerated for several months », Underlined to AFP Serge Nedjar. “ We have very few doubts about our renewal (frequency) since we meet all the criteria “. For its part, BFMTV claims to be first in number of viewers: 12.1 million each day (+10% in 1 year), compared to 8.2 million for CNews.