It’s a domino effect that its buyers perhaps did not expect: barely bought by Rodolphe Saadé, owner of the French shipowner CMA CGM, the continuous news channel BFMTV is experiencing a veritable cascade of departures, reports West France.
Leaders are leaving the ship…
It started with that of Arthur Dreyfuss (from the management of Altice Media, which owned BFMTV). Those of the channel’s general director Marc-Olivier Fogiel and Hervé Béroud, news director, followed.
But on Monday October 14, 2024, it was the emblematic Philippe Corbé, editorial director of BFMTV, who announced his departure to his teams, according to The Parisian. His replacement “will be named in the coming days. It’s someone from the group,” Fabien Namias clarified the same day.
…and journalists follow them
Several journalists are also expected to leave the channel, including Stéphane Sellami, senior police-justice reporter; Thomas Soulié, deputy head of the political service; Perrine Vasque, political journalist; Céline Pitelet, weekend presenter; Christophe Person, head of the weather service; and Candice Mahout, head of the culture department.
Our “BFMTV” file
To make matters worse, BFMTV audiences have been declining since the start of the school year, specifies Ouest France: with 2.9% audience share, it was “dominated” in September by its rival CNews (3.2%, according to figures from Médiamétrie). The gap (0.3 points) between the two channels had never been so high.
