No big bang in the PAF: billionaire Xavier Niel’s TV project will not replace M6, which will keep its frequency on digital terrestrial television (TNT), just like TF1. Even if these two frequencies have not yet been formally reallocated, only their current holders remain in the running for the last part of the procedure, announced on Wednesday, Arcom, the media regulator.
This puts an end to the hopes of Xavier Niel, who wanted to create a channel called “SIX” to replace M6, but whose project was not accepted. As soon as this announcement was made by Arcom, the billionaire reacted with a quirky message on Twitter.
The M6 group expressed its “satisfaction” in a press release. According to him, this stage allows him “to consider with serenity the continuation of the diffusion of his programs in the service of the public in the strict respect of his obligations”. The authorizations to operate channels 1 and 6 of the DTT expire on May 5 and their reattribution for ten years had been the subject of a call for applications.
No surprises
For channel 6, the fact that the project of the outgoing was privileged to that of the troublemaker Xavier Niel is not a surprise. At the end of communicating, he had summed up his project with a shocking formula: “Put people before money”. The founder of the telecom operator Free, very present in the press (group Le Monde, Nice-Matin, L’informé), promised less advertising, more new programs and first evening games starting before 9:00 p.m.
But it’s hard to imagine M6 stopping purely and simply on DTT, even if it could, in theory, have continued on all the other channels (streaming and satellite), or even postponed part of its programming on its other TNT (W9, 6ter, Paris Première and Gulli). There was even less suspense for TF1, the only candidate for its frequency.
This reattribution procedure is a first since 1987, the year of the privatization of TF1 and the arrival of M6 on the sixth hertzian network: until now, these pioneers had benefited from a renewal without a call for applications and in return for commitments to the regulator.
Arcom “will now initiate discussions with the selected candidates in order to conclude an agreement intended to define the obligations and commitments of each of the two services”, she explained in a press release.
“This agreement must be adopted before the issuance of an authorization to use the (frequency), which itself must take place before May 5, 2023,” added the regulator to specify the timetable.