C8 and NRJ12 will have to wait for the final decision of Arcom in December to be able to file an appeal before the Council of State. If the channels disappear from TNT, LCP / Public Sénat and L'Equipe are candidates to move to channels 8 or 12.
The appeal by C8 and NRJ12 before the Council of State to annul Arcom's pre-decision not to renew their DTT frequency from February 2025 was rejected. “The requests from C8, NRJ12 and Le Média, who wish to cancel the list of preselected candidates for the allocation of DTT frequencies, are premature. In fact, this list established by Arcom is at this stage only a pre-selection list: it does not constitute an award for the candidates appearing there, nor definitive rejection for the others. Only the final decisions of Arcom which should take place in December will definitively establish the candidates selected for DTT, and these can be contested, including urgently. informed the Council of State in a decision rendered on November 22. The requests from the three channels are therefore now deemed inadmissible.
“We can only regret that the Council of State considered that this stage of pre-selection of frequencies by ARCOM did not cause any harm, in other words that it was “without legal effects”, thus preventing any challenge at this stage. This interpretation places us in an untenable situation. Waiting for a “final decision” to take legal action will only leave us with a paltry amount of time to defend our interests. This (non-)pre-selection is already producing very concrete and detrimental effects. Beyond the financial implications, 400 employees are directly affected by this uncertainty. The future of these employees depends on rapid clarification and the current situation deprives them of this visibility”reacted for its part Canal+ which persists and signs, Arcom makes according to it a choice which “profoundly weakens the attractiveness and dynamism of the French audiovisual sector.”
LCP / Public Senate and L'Equipe to take over channels 8 or 12
Beyond this new allocation of frequencies, Arcom should also carry out a renumbering from March 2024. The audiovisual regulator is thinking in particular of the creation of a news block, but also a block of youth channels .
The two new channels, OFTV and Réels TV, should appear in distant positions, while channels 8 and 12 could be allocated to existing channels. LCP / Public Senate seems well placed to obtain channel 8 in the event of the closure of C8, thanks to its role as an advertising-free public service. However, the sports channel L'Équipe, which broadcasts sports content for free and belongs to an independent group, also presented its application, according to information from Le Parisien. She hopes to leave channel 21 for better visibility, highlighting its low economic impact on the audiovisual landscape.
This article was reprinted on the Univers FreeBox website
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