“You’re a television channel and you don’t have a frequency on TNT? Hello ! No, but hello, what! » Since, on July 24, the Audiovisual and Digital Regulatory Authority (Arcom) did not preselect NRJ 12 for the granting of a new broadcasting authorization on TNT, the managers of the channel which revealed the model Nabilla Vergara (in 2013, in the show “The Angels of Reality TV”) are on the alert.
Within a few days, the regulatory authority will reveal the final list of channels definitively selected. If it is confirmed that NRJ 12 does not appear there, the NRJ group will immediately initiate an appeal before the Council of State (in summary proceedings then, if necessary, on the merits). It is up to the highest administrative court to rule within a very short time frame: the current authorization for NRJ 12 – just like that of C8, the Canal+ Group channel – expires on February 28.
“This decision is incomprehensible (…)we still do not have information on the reasons for Arcom’s decision ». On September 30, on the stage of the Grand Rex, Maryam Salehi, the deputy director of general management of NRJ, presents the group’s media programs to journalists and advertisers. While the regulator has always said that it will only detail its motivations once the allocation process is completed, the manager is already pleading injustice. “More than 5 million viewers watch NRJ 12 every day”she explains to the audience of buyers of advertising space purchases, on which the group’s turnover depends. “NRJ 12 has 35 million viewers in October”she insisted, on November 15, in the corridors of the Council of State, during the examination of a first appeal – rejected – before the institution.
“The public interest”
Like C8, for whom its status as the most watched TNT channel is enough to justify its existence, the channel claims to “public interest”one of the criteria supposed to base the regulator’s decision (the two channels used the same law firm). But how to define it?
Read also | C8 excluded from TNT: the Council of State judges the channel’s appeal “inadmissible” because it was filed too early
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“Could you tell us what you consider to be the contributions of NRJ 12 over the last twenty years for the public? (…) in terms of pluralism in the program offering, and in the field of creation? “, Advisor Antoine Boilley asked the channel’s managers on July 12 during their hearing. He followed a remark from his colleague Hervé Godechot: “Three hundred hours of new programs per year is, forgive me, quite lowhad underlined the latter. It’s even the weakest [parmi toutes les candidatures examinées en juillet]. »
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