C8 and NRJ12 will indeed stop broadcasting on March 1st at midnight. On Wednesday, February 19th, the Council of State came to dampen the last hope of the two channels, by confirming Arcom's decision last July to disconnect them. The French audiovisual regulator had refused to renew the broadcasting on DTT of these two channels, for different reasons which the Council of State has rightly examined.
And for the highest administrative judges, the audiovisual regulator "did not commit an illegality by rejecting C8 and NRJ12 in favor of the other candidates on the basis of its assessment of each of the files and the comparison of their respective merits," it wrote in its decision. For the highest administrative court, it was above all the repeated failings of C8 and the poor financial health of the two channels that weighed in the balance.
Arcom based its decision on "objective, transparent, pro-competitive, non-discriminatory and proportionate criteria"
While the Council of State did not respond directly to the accusations of censorship of freedom of expression, made in particular by Marine Le Pen, the president of the RN, the judge was careful to point out that Arcom made its decision as part of a procedure based on "objective, transparent, pro-competitive, non-discriminatory and proportionate criteria". The court also returned to certain selected applications, and those presented by C8 and NRJ 12.
The case began last July. The French authority, which was to reallocate the DTT frequencies expiring at the end of February 2025, had selected several applications and rejected others, such as those of C8 and NRJ 12. Last December, it then published the list of the 11 selected channels, which still did not include C8 and NRJ 12. Enough to put the two channels on their backs, which seized the Council of State by filing an appeal "for abuse of power".
For C8, repeated failures and finances in the red
But for the Council of State, if C8 had indeed "a high audience share" and "a significant volume of new and live programs", the channel offers "not very diversified programs" in comparison with other applications which presented "a more varied and renewed offer" .
But above all, "the C8 company has been the subject of numerous financial sanctions, formal notices and on guard by Arcom for breaches, in recent years, of its legal and conventional obligations, particularly in terms of respect for human rights, protection of minors and control of the antenna. These breaches call into question "the channel's ability to meet its legal obligations if its authorization were to be renewed," notes the administrative judge.
These "breaches" were committed during the show of Cyril Hanouna, the channel's star host and author of numerous "slip-ups." In total, C8, sanctioned seven times, had to pay very hefty fines reaching 7.6 million euros between 2023 and 2024. Another reason listed by the Council of State: the channel also has its finances in the red. Created 20 years ago, it has not achieved financial balance.
For NRJ12, it is the choices to broadcast mainly "audiovisual fiction, many of them in reruns, and entertainment, genres already very represented on DTT, as well as in teleshopping" that are highlighted. With a financial balance sheet also in the red.
Despite the explanation of the text, the decision of the Council of State was strongly criticized by NRJ12, which deplores "a profound injustice", but also by Canal +, owner of C8.
400 jobs threatened?
For the encrypted channel, this is a "pure and simple ouster of the C8 channel, established in the audiovisual landscape for almost 20 years, still ranking as the number one DTT channel and bringing together more than 9 million cumulative viewers every day". The channel was in 2024 the number one in terms of audience share on DTT, according to figures from Médiamétrie published last Monday. Now, it is "an entire ecosystem (... which) finds itself sacrificed (...). Nearly 400 C8 employees and service providers are preparing to lose their jobs or see them threatened," Canal+ lamented in its press release.
The criticism was taken up by figures from the right and the far right, such as the current Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau, Laurent Wauquiez, Éric Ciotti and Marine Le Pen: the RN president believes that this decision "must worry the French about the threats that weigh heavily on pluralism and freedom of opinion".
Instead of these two channels, we will now find T18, from the CMI France group, owned by Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský, and OFTV from Ouest France. There remains one last hope for C8 and NRJ12: four frequencies, freed up by Canal+ pay channels, will be vacant from June. The Council of State also calls on Arcom to launch "a new impact study and public consultation procedure in order to assess whether a new call for applications should be launched to allocate these four vacant frequencies".
Source: Decision of the Council of State
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