Upheaval in sight on the zapette: from June 6, the continuous news channels BFM, CNews, LCI and Franceinfo will be side by side on numbers 13 to 16, while France 4 will succeed Canal+ in 4th position.
Announced on Monday by the audiovisual regulator, Arcom, this unprecedented change in numbering results from the next shutdown of digital terrestrial television (DTT) of C8 and NRJ12, at the end of February. This opened up the possibility of a major upheaval of the channels, which will change the habits of viewers.
The most spectacular change concerns the news channels. The leaders BFMTV and CNews, until then numbers 15 and 16, will advance to 13 and 14 in June. LCI (channel 26) and franceinfo (27) will take places 15 and 16.
Previously dispersed, all four will now form a “block” of news channels, according to the terms of Arcom.
At the risk of not satisfying BFMTV which pleaded for the status quo. But “BFM is not penalized” and “we cannot be a fan of competition and oppose it when it is there”, tackled Roch-Olivier Maistre, president of Arcom.
This development is possible because the public channels LCP and Public Sénat, which currently share channel 13, will jump to number 8 – “a historic step” according to the first.
And France 4, the youth and cultural channel of the public group France Télévisions, will leave number 14 to replace Canal+ on 4 in June. Thus France 2, France 3, France 4 and France 5 will follow each other “logically”, underlines Arcom.
The Canal+ group has announced the withdrawal next June of its four pay channels from DTT (Canal+, Canal+ Cinéma, Canal+ Sport, Planète), in reaction to the non-renewal of the C8 frequency and to “a fiscal and regulatory environment of more and more restrictive.
Until now number 18, Gulli, the children's channel of the M6 group, will occupy the place left vacant by NRJ12 in 12th place.
“Viewer interest”
In total, eleven DTT frequencies were reallocated in December. Arcom removed two current licensees, C8 and NRJ12, and selected two new channels: one launched by the CMI France group, owned by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, the other by Ouest-France.
These will begin broadcasting on June 6 on channel 18 for the first and on September 1 on channel 19 for the second. The 19th has been free since the shutdown in 2020 of France Ô. A draw decided between them for these two channels.
The CMI France channel, chaired by Christopher Baldelli, was initially scheduled to start on March 1. This delay will give him time to better prepare.
Such a general change is a first since the creation of TNT in 2005 because, until then, the latest arrivals took the latest numbers.
“The public interest was the only guide,” assured Mr. Maistre, defending “reasonable choices” and also taking into account the sluggish state of the advertising market. “The historical numbers are not changed,” he noted.
The new numbering will be implemented all at once on June 6, and not in sequences from March. There will therefore temporarily be black screens or simple information messages on vacant channels 8 and 12.
The regulator has held consultations with the channels on this crucial issue of numbers. Because being among the first is considered an advantage for the audience: the lower a number is, the quicker it is found on the remote control.
Channels unhappy with the new situation will always be able to appeal to administrative justice.
For their part, C8, channel of the controversial host Cyril Hanouna, as well as NRJ12, both of which are contesting their exclusion from TNT, are awaiting a hearing on the merits before the Council of State in the coming weeks.
Owned by the Canal+ group, in the hands of conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré, C8 has accumulated fines of 7.6 million euros due to the slip-ups of the leader of the TPMP show.
According to Cyril Hanouna, a “serious possibility” would be for it to switch to CStar (channel 17).
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