On November 15, 2024, C8, NRJ 12 and Le Média pleaded their case before the Council of State in order to “cancel the list of pre-selected candidates for the allocation of DTT frequencies“. A week later, the Sages judge their requests.”inadmissible because premature“, they write in a press release. The institution recalls the state of the procedure: “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 TNT, and these can be contested before the Council of State, including urgently.“, writes the institution.
An appeal can only be filed in December 2024, after the officialization of the list of candidates selected for the allocation of DTT frequencies
In other words, as long as Arcom has not validated the pre-selection list made public on July 24, 2024, the time to appeal has not come. “The administrative judge cannot be contacted at this stage against this “pre-selection” list which does not constitute either an award for the candidates appearing there, nor rejection of their application for the others”assures the Council of State. “This list of pre-selected candidates, which is a practice of Arcom and is not provided for by law, does not constitute the outcome of the DTT frequency allocation procedure.“.
READ ALSO: TNT frequencies: The Council of State rejects the summary appeals of C8, NRJ 12 and Le Média against the Arcom decision
Indeed, the institution further explains, “Arcom can only really reject an application when it has definitively chosen to accept another and this definitive choice can only take place at the end of the negotiation of the agreement which must accompany the authorization to broadcast . Arcom can thus still choose, even after the publication of such a list, to end the negotiations initiated with one of the preselected candidates or to begin them with another candidate not appearing there, until the final decision is made.“.
In February 2024, recalls the Council of State, the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (Arcom) launched a call for applications for the renewal of the authorizations of fifteen DTT channels which expire from the end of February 2025. On July 24, Arcom announced by press release that it had “pre-selected as a preparatory measure” fifteen applications. The companies C8, NRJ 12 and Le Média, which do not appear on this list, have asked the Council of State to cancel it because they consider that it has the effect of rejecting their applications.
OFTV and Réels TV preferred over C8 and NRJ 12
Channel of host Cyril Hanouna, C8 has launched a petition to ask for its frequency to be maintained. It had 830,000 signatures as of Friday afternoon. In the Arcom preselection, two newcomers were preferred to C8 and NRJ12: OFTV (Ouest-France group) and RéelsTV (CMI France, from Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky).
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