The call for applications for fifteen digital terrestrial television frequencies was opened on Wednesday by the audiovisual regulator (Arcom), the start of a process to determine which channels will have the right to broadcast in France in 2025.
Submission of applications until May 15
Arcom indicated in a press release that it had until May 7 at noon to signal its intention to be a candidate for one of these 15 frequencies, or half of the national channels.
Then each candidate will have until May 15 at noon to submit “their entire application file”.
A phase of public hearings and selection of files will follow “in the summer”, to then negotiate the agreements, and finally issue the authorizations “by the end of 2024”.
The frequencies brought into play are those of the free C8, W9, TMC, TFX, NRJ 12, LCI, BFMTV, CNews, CStar, Gulli, and the pay Canal +, Canal + Sport, Canal + Cinéma, Paris Première and Planète +.
Their owners, namely Canal + (Vivendi group), the TF1 group, NRJ Group, Altice and the M6 group, should unsurprisingly file a file to keep their frequency, or even obtain more.
The sensitive question is whether C8 and CNews, owned by the Vivendi group of conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré, will keep their frequencies, after numerous calls to order from the regulator.
New channels that obtain authorization will be able to start broadcasting no earlier than March 1, 2025, and must do so no later than September 1, 2025.
Broadcasting must be “full time and in high definition”, for “at least 95% of the metropolitan population”, free or paid.
“The authority grants authorizations by assessing the interest of each project for the public, with regard to the priority imperatives of safeguarding the pluralism of socio-cultural currents of expression, the diversification of operators, and the need to avoid abuse. dominant position as well as practices hindering the free exercise of competition”, we read in the Arcom decree.
📢 Call for applications for the allocation of frequencies for the broadcast of national DTT channels🔽
— Arcom (@Arcom_fr) February 28, 2024
As for channel numbers, they are allocated according to criteria “including the public interest and the principles of equal treatment of operators and respect for free competition”.
A parliamentary commission of inquiry is looking into the subject
Launched in 2005 in mainland France, DTT structures the French audiovisual landscape.
More than 40% of households equipped with a television connect theirs to the signal from terrestrial transmitters.
This mode of reception, however, is declining compared to the Internet, with the progression of optical fiber in the territory.
The numbering of DTT channels is a strategic issue.
The first channels capture most of the viewers, out of habit, and the “TV boxes” of Internet providers tend to follow the numbering assigned by Arcom.
The call for applications is open on the eve of hearings at the National Assembly of leaders and presenters from C8 and CNews, including Maxime Saada, CEO of the Canal + group to which the two channels belong, and headliners from CNews like Pascal Praud, Laurence Ferrari or Sonia Mabrouk.
A commission of inquiry, at the initiative of the La France insoumise deputies, is in fact looking into the allocation of frequencies.