Led by billionaire Rodolphe Saadé, the Marseille shipowner created a huge surprise by announcing on March 15 that it had signed an agreement to buy the media branch of the Altice group from businessman Patrick Drahi.
CMA CGM had then indicated that the transaction would be finalized “during the summer”, for an amount of 1.55 billion euros.
While giving its authorization to the operation, the Competition Authority nevertheless made it conditional on compliance by CMA CGM with certain commitments concerning the advertising market in the south of France. In this region, the shipowner already owns the daily newspaper La Provence.
In particular, CMA CGM has undertaken not to practice any form of group sales offer (coupling) of advertising space for La Provence and the local BFM Paca channels.
In addition, CMA CGM must “maintain a separation of the respective advertising agencies of La Provence and the BFM PACA channels”, according to the Competition Authority.
For its part, Arcom has also decided to “issue approval” for the acquisition of Altice Media by CMA CGM, “in view of the commitments made by the purchaser”.
These commitments relate in particular to the “ethical obligations” of audiovisual media which offer information programs, “to pluralism, honesty and independence of information and programs”, indicated the regulator in a press release.
– Media empire –
With this acquisition, Rodolphe Saadé and CMA CGM are adding a big stone to the media empire they are building, just two years after setting foot in the sector.
During this period, the Franco-Lebanese billionaire acquired the newspaper La Tribune and the La Provence group (regional dailies La Provence and Corse Matin), in addition to holdings in M6 and the online video media Brut.
In mid-May, CMA CGM recruited a great captain for its empire by bringing in the outgoing boss of M6, Nicolas de Tavernost, as vice-president of its new holding company CMA Médias.
But the construction of this new media giant has raised fears about independence.
In March, journalists from Provence went on strike for 72 hours and denounced “inadmissible editorial interference”, in reaction to the dismissal of the editorial director, after a headline on Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Marseille judged ” ambiguous” by management.
On Thursday, journalists’ unions and the management of La Provence signed a “charter of editorial independence and ethics”, which notably guarantees the protection of journalists against “any form of pressure”.
– Competition from CNews –
Also in March, Rodolphe Saadé tried to reassure Altice Media staff about jobs and his desire not to interfere directly in the work of editorial staff.
Altice Media, which was called NextRadioTV until 2021, was gradually sold to Patrick Drahi by Alain Weill from 2015. The group includes the news channel BFMTV, the radio station RMC and the DTT channels RMC Découverte and RMC Story.
Directed by Marc-Olivier Fogiel, BFMTV has long been number one in continuous news in France. But it was doubled in May for the first time over a month by CNews, a subsidiary of Vivendi, the group of conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré.
As part of the green light from Arcom, two local BFM channels, BFM Lyon and BFM Alsace, must stop broadcasting on DTT to migrate to non-terrestrial networks.
In fact, their authorizations dated from 2021 and 2023 respectively. However, the law prohibits the transfer of a channel within five years following the allocation of their DTT frequency.
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