Fin programs for NA Media, the regional media group founded by Nicolas Coûte. On June 18, the La Rochelle commercial court ordered the liquidation of the parent company, NA Media, and NA TV, a subsidiary. Another, NA Presse, is expected to suffer the same fate on Tuesday, July 2, since its manager himself requested it (1).
This is the conclusion of several months of questioning about the activities of the various companies created or taken over by the journalist and business leader from Gironde, originally from Cadillac-en-Fronsadais: a television channel (NA TV), radio stations (Radio île d’Oléron – RIO and NA Radio), a publishing company (NA Éditions), a production company (NA Prod), a press agency (NA Presse). Apart from a few shows and reports broadcast on the small screen and on the Internet, the content of NA TV has not lived up to the ambitions announced by Nicolas Coûte, those of a “channel for all the people of New Aquitaine”, offering “sixteen hours of live broadcasts per day, 7 days a week”.
Even the partnership with the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Football League, a nice coup by the former head of Orange Sport and collaborator of FIFA (International Football Federation), was about to end. “I didn’t even know that the company was in liquidation,” assures Christophe Fugeray, CEO of the League. Our agreement was coming to an end on June 30 and the League did not wish to renew it. The decision is due to the choice to internalize communication.”
Frédéric Zabalza / SO
The headquarters of NA TV, the channel of the NA Media group, in La Rochelle, is currently closed.
“Shadow of Himself”
Established since 2022 in studios fitted out near the marina of La Rochelle, the NA Médias group has accumulated not hearings but debts. In particular with Urssaf, for unpaid employee contributions amounting to 11,000 euros. “Mr. Nicolas Coûte’s debt is also significant concerning the other companies of which he is the legal representative,” adds the judgment of the commercial court. It specifies that the public prosecutor filed a request, on April 24, 2024, “for the purpose of opening a possible judicial recovery procedure […] or the pronouncement of an investigation in order to know the current situation of the company”.
“Clearly it is very inappropriate for him to run a business”
Arnaud Laraize, public prosecutor of La Rochelle, explains that he submitted this request after a report from the commercial court, “given the very high debts of the various companies” of Nicolas Coûte. “This is the beginning of the end of his business,” believes an expert in the local economic environment.
All the more so since, during the hearing, the leader showed a completely different face than that of the brilliant and “smooth-talking” character described by all his interlocutors, friends or enemies, elected “Périgourdin of the year” in 2013. It was a frail and tired figure that faced the judges of the court. “A shadow of himself, a ghost”, according to a witness who had crossed paths with him in recent years.
If Nicolas Coûte “has claimed serious health problems” for years, according to the judgment, he is now suffering from “very serious psychological difficulties”, writes Arnaud Laraize to “Sud Ouest”. “Clearly, it is very inappropriate for him to run a company”, believes the prosecutor.
The end of NA Media is not Nicolas Coûte’s first failure in the region. Under his leadership, the Périgueux rugby club, CAP, was relegated by two divisions in 2014, with a loss of 650,000 euros. The following year, the women’s handball team of the Union Bordeaux-Bègles-Mios filed for bankruptcy after its passage.
He then tried his luck in Charente-Maritime, where the Castel association – la Maison de l’enfance, in Saint-Pierre-d’Oléron, appointed him director, before dismissing him for “incapacity”, accusing a deficit of 80,000 euros. The former journalist of France Inter, Radio France or RMC therefore returned to the microphone, taking over the associative radio station Chassiron FM, based in Saint-Denis-d’Oléron, then Soleil de Ré, in Rivedoux-Plage.
On the Isle of Ré, he also approached Rhéa Marketing, the publishing company of the newspaper “Ré à la Hune”. The Ré adventure ended abruptly, marked by an open conflict with Lionel Quillet, president of the Community of Communes.
On the continent, its companies have already been condemned several times by the commercial court and industrial tribunals. As in Saintes, in 2021, after the takeover of Editions Deserson. Or in La Rochelle, on September 19, following a dispute with the founder of the company Passeport Privilèges, who demanded 45,000 euros from Nicolas Coûte. The court ordered him to compensate her to the tune of nearly 30,000 euros. To date, she has not yet received anything.
(1) We were unable to contact Nicolas Coûte or his lawyer.
