Internet service providers and connected TV manufacturers will now be required to give as much visibility on their screens to traditional and free channels as to streaming platforms.
In France, according to Arcom, nearly 83% of homes were equipped with a connected TV in 2023. Photo Riccardo Milani/Hans Lucas
By Anne Laffeter
Published on September 27, 2024 at 3:36 p.m.
AToday, turning on your connected television means having a good chance of coming across, by default, Netflix, Prime Video or YouTube, well placed on the home page. The viewer sometimes has to browse three pages of applications (and no longer zap) to watch Further investigation on France Télévisions, Tomorrow belongs to us on TF1 or Love is in the meadow on M6. Weary, remote control in hand, he will sometimes be too lazy to get stuck in the twists and turns of the pages and will curl up with delight in the arms of The Bridgerton Chronicles on Netflix. This situation gave hives to the managers of the French channels, well aware of losing the battle for visibility against the American giants. Especially since the smart tv has established itself in France: according to Arcom, nearly 83% of homes are equipped with a connected TV (2023). The head of France Télévisions, Delphine Ernotte, was publicly annoyed to see a Netflix button sitting majestically on certain remote controls.
Also read:
Unsurprisingly, streaming continues to eat away at television market share
The French audiovisual sector has just won an important victory in this war of remote control, display and spontaneous access to programs. Arcom, the audiovisual policeman, will impose on ISPs (Internet access providers), manufacturers of smart tv and to Web giants like Google or Amazon to give equivalent visibility to all the free channels (public and private) of the national DTT and their platforms. This victory, that of pluralism and cultural diversity, the French audiovisual sector owes to the European Union, which gives the power to Arcom to apply the SMA (Audiovisual Media Services) directive of 2018.
But how can we establish this visibility when it concerns twenty-five channels and numerous digital variations? Concretely, Arcom is pushing for the creation of a common application, a window which would open onto the applications of each channel in the logical order of DTT. Will the sector follow this recommendation? Will the channels be able to get along? In the United Kingdom, several public and private free channels (BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and 5) took the plunge in 2024 by creating an aggregation platform, called Freely.
