Obligations of audiovisual media services by the Canal+ Group - Annual Report 2020

Summary

As of January 1, 2020, the Canal+ Group's three free-to-air channels - C8, CStar and CNews - have all benefited from renewed agreements.

The new agreements for C8, CStar and CNews, signed as part of the renewal of their authorizations, came into effect on January 1, 2020. As the authorization for the Canal+ program is due to expire on December 5, 2020, the Board has signed a new agreement and issued a new broadcasting authorization to the Canal+ group for the diffusion of this service. This authorization, at the publisher's request, is for a period of 3 years, renewable once. The new agreement, which takes effect on December 6, 2020, incorporates most of the stipulations of the previous agreement, updated on the basis of the wording recently adopted for other DTT services. The publisher has also made additional commitments in terms of program accessibility and in support of audiovisual production in French overseas territories.

Over and above these contractual changes, programming on Canal+ Group channels has been disrupted by the health crisis: C8 and CStar have seen an increase in the volume of documentaries and magazines shown. Due to the cessation of certain programs filmed live and in the presence of an audience, a large number of entertainments and shows had to be suspended, resulting in a drop in their diffusion volume on C8. On CNews, the breakdown between news broadcasts and news magazines has undergone significant development between 2019 and 2020: while the volume of broadcasts of news bulletins fell by 806 hours, that of news magazines rose by a corresponding 894 hours.

Following the change in regulations with the publication of decree no. 2020-984 of August 5, 2020, which raised the ceilings on the number of cinematographic works that channels are authorized to show, and abolished "forbidden days", with the exception of the Saturday evening framework, cinema followed a particular development. While these new schemes have led to a slight increase in the number of cinematographic works on the C8 channel, the same cannot be said of CStar, despite the fact that 11 films were shown on Wednesday evenings. Canal+, for its part, not only increased its volume of films, but also enriched its cinematic supply, offering a greater variety of titles.

Despite the programming upheavals caused by the periods of confinement, all the Canal+ Group's free-to-air and pay-TV channels complied with their legal and contractual obligations in 2020, both in terms of diffusion (broadcast quotas and specific obligations quantified in almost their entirety) and investments in cinematic and audiovisual production. For their part, on-demand audiovisual media services (SMAD) have complied almost in full with the provisions of decree no. 2010-1379 of November 12, 2010 for fiscal 2019.

However, in a letter dated July 7, 2021, the Council warned the CStar channel, for the second year running, against renewing its breach of its obligation to show a daily program on music news.

The Council also took action against certain channels by letter or e-mail:

• C8 was issued a formal notice for sponsoring programs with an airline brand;
• with regard to rights and freedoms, the Council intervened on five occasions with C8 and CNews, notably to impose a 200,000 euro legal sanction on the publisher following comments made during the Face à l'info program broadcast on September 29, 2020 on CNews;
• finally, in view of the very worrying quantitative and qualitative results, the Council summoned the attention of the Group's channels to the need to comply with the provisions relating to women's rights.