Who will really benefit from the new numbering of television channels?

Change in the small skylight. The outgoing president of the Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority (Arcom), Roch-Olivier Maistre, announced on January 13 the very future numbering of television channels. From June 6, 2025, the French will be able to observe some upheavals by switching on their remote control, nine changes in total.

This decision is in reality following the project of reallocation of the 15 DTT frequencies launched in February 2024, whose publishers’ authorization to broadcast expires on February 28, 2025. As a reminder, this same procedure resulted last summer in the widely commented decision to oust C8 and NRJ12. In the process, Canal + chose to withdraw from its channel 4.

Constitution of blocks

In the order of appearance, the very first choice of Arcom, and not the least, was therefore to allocate the vacant channel 4 to France 4. In the mind of the regulator, this involves constituting a first “block” of public service channels with, in the order of appearance, France 2, France 3, now the youth channel France 4 then France 5. The hole number 8 lost by Cyril Hanouna was reassigned to the parliamentary channels LCP and Public Sénate. The other youth channel, Gulli, formerly at number 18, has made a big leap forward and regained number 12.

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It is on the side of the continuous news channels that the changes are most notable, the members of Arcom wanting the creation of a dedicated block “so that viewers have simplified access to a pluralistic offer of information”. We will now find at number 13 Rodolphe Saadé’s channel, BFMTV, at number 14, that of Vincent Bolloré, CNews, then right behind them, LCI from the TF1 group on 15 and Franceinfo on 16.

The two newbies who have their entry at the end of the reassignment sequence arrive next and their order has been drawn by lot. The channel of Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky (owner of Marianne), CMI TV, will be broadcast on channel 18, that of the Ouest-France group, Ouest-France TV, at number 19.

Winners and losers?

However, these reshuffled cards have divided the PAF. When some channel editors welcome the choices of the nine members of Arcom, others on the contrary feel wronged. On the one hand, the public service and Delphine Ernotte, the president of France Télévisions, can greatly rejoice at the rise of two of its channels in the numbering. In particular from France Info, whose relegation to channel 27 can partly explain its low audiences in recent years. The same goes for the TF1 group, whose CEO, Rodolphe Belmer, welcomed the fact that LCI is moving from channel 26 to channel 15. In 2018, France 4 narrowly escaped closure due to its low audiences before its usefulness during the pandemic does not save his skin.

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On the “not happy” side, we logically find the publishers competing with these mergers. In the wake of these announcements, Nicolas de Tavernost, the president of the RMC-BFM group, deplored at the microphone of France Info “ a difficult decision to swallow.” “What shocks me, I won’t hide it from you, is that, without any other precaution, the canal that we have historically occupied for twenty years – and in which we invested enormously – it was channel 15 and we were kicked out of the apartment without warning”, regretted the former boss of M6, who fears a drop in his audiences and more advertising competition.

If the CNEWS channel had the wind in its sails for several months in its audiences, it will also have to battle within this block. Finally, the two newcomers, CMI and Ouest-France, can applaud their positioning. In fact, since the creation of TNT in 2005, it was customary for the latest channels to arrive to take the latest numbers.

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These fears, like these celebrations, seem well-founded. Thierry Thuillier, the head of information at TF1, estimated in August 2024 that “the very distant numbering of LCI” was a « handicap » for his channel. “As soon as you start moving a number, obviously it has cascading consequences”had also recognized Roch-Olivier Maistre. We therefore consider that the lower the number of a channel, the more the viewer memorizes it and the more likely they are to come across it when they browse. The battle of the remote controls will begin on June 6.