He claimed 6.8 million euros in damage to his old chain, after the stop of "Terrans on Saturday!" "And" Sunday Earthlings! On C8 in May 2019. Thierry Ardisson will receive much less. Tuesday, the Paris commercial court condemned his former employer, the Canal + group, to pay 811,500 euros to the host, for brutal termination of commercial relations. Information made public Wednesday by our colleagues from La Lettre A and which we confirm.
The litigation goes back to last spring, when the chain demands from Thierry Ardisson that it halves the cost of its emissions of the weekend. “The chain no longer has the means to afford Ardisson and its teams. And I don't want to do low cost TV under the yoke of the accountants, "then deplores in May the presenter, present in the group since 2006. He directly pleads his cause with Vincent Bolloré, owner of the subsidiary of the Vivendi group , in vain. In the absence of agreement, C8 stops the program a month and a half before the end of the season, and on May 19, Thierry Ardisson announces in a press release that he is leaving Canal +.
In the process, he went to court, believing himself, after thirteen years of uninterrupted presence on the encrypted channel and then on C8, in a situation of "economic dependence" vis-à-vis its broadcaster. He wants redress after the production company Teleparis, which he owns with producer Stéphane Simon, had to lay off 90 people.
Canal + will not appeal
In its decision, the Paris Commercial Court ordered C8 to pay 269,333 euros to "Téléparis" ( Editor's note: who asked for 3.6 million ), under a notice not granted, but dismissed his request for payment of redundancy payments. The judges considered that the decision to stop the program, too short, should have been increased to 4.5 months to allow the host and his teams to turn around. Thierry Ardisson, on the other hand, got nothing for moral and professional damage for which he claimed 1 million euros from his ex-employer, considering his image "damaged".
Asked Wednesday, the man in black still absent from the small screen and the production company Teleparis did not wish to react. The entourage of the host indicates that he is "satisfied" that the justice establishes the responsibility of Canal +, and announces "that he appeals in the short term" of the decision to try to obtain a higher compensation.
For its part, the Canal + group indicates that it will not appeal the decision, stating that in total Thierry Ardisson and Téléparis wanted to obtain more than 10 million euros.
