The cards are not reshuffled but BFMTV has some concerns. Unsurprisingly, TF1 and France 2 respectively retain their first and second places in the ranking of TV audiences in 2021. The two channels have made strong progress in one year, just like CNews, whose audience has jumped without overtaking its rival BFMTV.
According to figures published on Monday by Médiamétrie, the audience share (pda) of TF1, all categories of viewers combined, increased by 0.5 point to 19.7%, approaching the 20% mark, a level below which the first channel had fallen in 2019.
Cardboard for “HPI”
The first channel recorded 70 of the 100 best audiences in 2021, in particular the strongest of them: the eighth finals of the France-Switzerland football Euro, which gathered 16.4 million viewers. Also to the credit of TF1, the audience card of the French series HPI which attracted 12.4 million viewers, achieving the best audience in French fiction of 2021 but also since 2005.
France 2 is not left with a jump of 0.6 point with 14.7%, which marks a level of audience at the highest since 2012, pulled by the same sport-fiction cocktail. The second channel thus achieved its best audience of the year in the first part of the evening with the France-Scotland match of the Six Nations Tournament which gathered more than 7.6 million viewers.
The broadcast of the Tokyo Olympics last summer contributed to the overall performance of the channel which also prides itself on the success of series such as Captain Marleau, Astrid and Raphaëlle or more recently Around the world in 80 days.
France 3 on the third step of the podium
France 3 remains on the third step of the podium with a stable audience share over one year at 9.4% just ahead of M6 which garners 0.1 point audience over one year at 9.1%. France 5 posted 3.3% audience share, down 0.2 point, followed by TMC (3% audience, stable over one year) and Arte, which remained at 2.9% over one year .
BFMTV remains the leading news channel with an audience share of 2.9%, similar to last year. On the other hand, CNews jumped 0.6 point and achieved 2% audience share. LCI follows, at 1.1% down 0.1 point, and Franceinfo, stable at 0.7% over one year. The overall television viewing time in 2021 has returned to its pre-health crisis and confinement level, to 3:41 per day on average compared to 3.58 hours in 2020.