The general director of CNews tried to put the influence of his superior into perspective.
Serge Nedjar, refuted Thursday before the deputies any interventionism of his shareholder Vincent Bolloré, who calls him “practically daily or every two days” concerning the channel's audiences.
“I have never suffered any pressure from Vincent Bolloré,” he insisted during his hearing by the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the allocation of DTT frequencies.
“If the answer you want to hear, if in one way or another, there is interaction from Vincent Bolloré on my decision-making, the answer is still no,” insists the general director of CNews, Serge Nedjar.#DirectAN #CNews pic.twitter.com/Qs7nz0dM3u
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“I have no intervention from Mr. Bolloré to carry out my work,” he assured about the billionaire, regularly accused of interference in the media that he controls via Vivendi, the group's parent company. Canal + and its channels like CNews and C8.
“I believe that Mr. Vincent Bolloré comes about once or twice a month to Canal,” explained Serge Nedjar, questioned by the rapporteur of the commission of inquiry Aurélien Saintoul (LFI) on the frequency of his exchanges with the 'business man.
“I am not in the same place because we are now in another building (than Canal +), so I go once or twice a month to Canal to speak with (its boss) Maxime Saada (…) and I have the chance to meet at that moment, when he is there, Vincent Bolloré,” specified the boss of CNews.
“Practically” daily exchanges
“Never telephone exchanges?
», then repeated the MP.
“Almost daily or every two days to talk to me about the audiences, to congratulate us or to reassure us when the audiences are not good (…) and to know how people are at CNews,” replied Serge Nedjar.
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“It turns out that at the moment we are beating BFMTV every day, so obviously I am lucky to have it more often,” he added, while the two news channels are competing for first place.
BFMTV remained the leading news channel in 2023, but is being overtaken by CNews.
For the first time, the two channels were equal in December, with 2.6% audience share each over the whole month.