Faced with the 8 p.m. news from TF1 and France 2, which are very much in the habits of viewers, the news channels have until now played counter-programming, by offering debate meetings. BFM-TV has decided to turn the tables: from January 6, the news channel recently bought by Rodolphe Saadé should, according to our information, inaugurate its own “8 p.m.
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Lasting two hours, it will be presented by Maxime Switek, currently host of the 9 a.m.-noon slot – he took over, in January 2023, from Bruce Toussaint, who left for TF1. The journalist should be surrounded by a few expert voices (on domestic politics, the economy, international issues in particular), but also offer reports and interviews. The objective is to move away from confrontational formats to favor a dispassionate, even benevolent, approach to information, as the show already does “Perrine until midnight”, every day at 10 p.m.
With this new show, Maxime Switek dislodges his colleague Eric Brunet, who had joined BFM-TV at the start of the school year, after being poached from LCI by the team previously in place (Marc-Olivier Fogiel at the management of BFM-TV, Hervé Béroud to the information department of the BFM-TV-RMC group).
Retain viewers
Initially called “Liberty, equality, Brunet” (a title “which was reminiscent of a film by Jean Yanne entitled Freedom, equality, sauerkraut »laments an executive at the house), Eric Brunet’s show had been renamed “20 Heures Brunet” a few days after the arrival of Fabien Namias as director of the channel, in October. Eric Brunet should no longer present a program, but will remain on the air in an editorial role.
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These changes, intended to keep viewers in front of BFM-TV for longer, should not remain isolated. In November, and contrary to the wishes of the new shareholder, the channel’s audience was once again lower than that of its rival CNews (2.8% market share, compared to 3.1% for the channel Canal+ Group).
