Speech by Martin Ajdari, President of Arcom - ADMTV, March 26, 2025

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Mr. Chairman, dear François,

Ladies and Gentlemen, Directors of the Alliance des médias TV et Vidéo,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you for welcoming me this morning, on the day your union adopts this new name, which marks both a turning point and a logical outcome, with the arrival of new members, fully established in the daily lives of the French.

New members who, between them, have invested nearly 900 million euros in audiovisual and cinematic production between 2021 and 2023. These new members have also entered the advertising arena at a time when free-to-air TV channels have modernised and enriched their online supplies - supplies that are highly popular with audiences and advertisers alike.

This new name marks both the blurring of boundaries that seemed watertight, and the successful integration of new players, to the benefit of the diversity of supply and audiovisual creation.

Recent developments in media release chronology also bear witness to the gradual integration of the film industry, as we move towards a new balance in our ecosystem.

However, this balance is fragile, particularly for the sector's traditional players.

Of course, linear television still dominates the audiovisuel landscape, accounting for two-thirds of IAD. It remains by far the most powerful medium, the only one capable of attracting several million or even ten million viewers at the same time. And it finances nearly 80% of creative investment.

The television set itself continues to occupy a central place in the vast majority of households - 89% of French people own at least one - whereas a few years ago it was predicted that it would gradually be replaced by individual screens. This development has not taken place.

The DTT platform also remains appealing, as demonstrated by the 2024 call for applications: 19 applications received for 10 free-to-air authorizations; and the selection of two new channels - T18 and OFTV - which will contribute to program diversity from this summer onwards.

So there are signs of resilience, resistance, dynamism, and despite the good advertising results for 2024, we know that long-term trends are more worrying, as the DGMIC and Arcom study showed last year. Television's total market share - linear and non-linear - was 28% in 2018; it fell to 20% in 2024 and is expected to drop to 17% in 2030.

The causes of this erosion are well known. Some are intrinsic to the medium, such as the drop in television listening time, particularly among youngsters, and a certain aging of its audience.

But the main reason is the cornering of the market by video-sharing platforms, search engines and social networks. With the development of smart TVs - present in 40% of households, but accounting for 90% of purchases - traditional media will increasingly face head-on competition from these new players.

These players are not subject to the same regulatory or tax constraints; they are imposing their balance of power and taking advantage of their algorithms and in-depth knowledge of their users.

This competition, within the TV set itself, is therefore no longer theoretical, and I'd like to remind you that last September, Arcom published a list of "services of general interest" which, in application of the AVMS directive, are to be given appropriate visibility on the main interfaces, notably TV home screens. In plain English, this means that all national free-to-air DTT channels will have to be accessible on these interfaces, under the same conditions as the best-exposed services.

Since then, Arcom has been in dialogue with TV manufacturers to ensure that interfaces integrate these conditions. But given the challenges in terms of visibility and competition, I can only encourage television groups to work together to create a single access point, much as radio stations have done with RadioPlayer.

Arcom is at your disposal to move these discussions forward and find common solutions quickly.

We'll be keeping these trends and weaknesses in mind when we launch a public consultation in mid-April on the use of the terrestrial resources available since the Canal Plus group withdrew from pay DTT.

This consultation will be followed by an impact study, to be published in early July. The aim will be to determine, without any preconceived ideas, the best balance between 1/ improving service quality (according to what norms, what technical methods, what coverage, at what cost and with what environmental impact), 2/ the possible increase in supply and 3/ the sustainability of financing in the light of the market. We will be very attentive to all contributions.

Whatever the outcome of this consultation (and I really do invite you to contribute), as of the one that will follow in 2026 for the 3rd wave of DTT, developments in usage are too powerful for us to remain inactive on the issue of competitive disparities. I'd like to mention two of them: advertising regulations and transparency issues.

Firstly, advertising regulations and restrictions, which, I would remind you, are a matter for the regulatory authority, since Arcom is only invited to issue opinions.

Unsurprisingly, one of the first issues I've been asked about since I took office is the ban on television advertising for retail promotions. In my view, there are two ways of approaching this issue, and I'm well aware of how sensitive they are.

The first is to say that a development is not possible if it does not guarantee the preservation of the resources of the essential and already fragile media of radio and the press, and this is a perfectly legitimate concern.

The second is that it would be rather absurd if streaming budgets, and in particular the downward trend in investment in print advertising mail, were to mainly benefit digital pure players, in the absence of sufficient inventory to accommodate them in the historical media.

Between these two concerns, I believe we must collectively seek solutions aimed at increasing the overall resources of the media, without anyone losing out.

Other issues, this time of concern to Arcom: we will very shortly be launching a review of the rules governing surreptitious advertising and those applicable to product placement in flow programs. I know that this issue does not (either) meet with unanimous approval. All the more reason, then, to discuss it and calmly assess its effects, not only in terms of revenue, but also consumer protection and program quality.

More generally, the collective objective must be to aim for greater fairness and harmonization between traditional media and platforms, but I insist, without aligning regulation from the bottom up, especially when it comes to consumer protection and public health (food, fight agains addictions).

The first, applicable to radio, seems to acknowledge the ineffectiveness of certain legal notices and calls for them to be overhauled; the second, more important, makes "the fair application of rules to platforms a prerequisite for any increase in requirements", and calls for a review of European rules in this area, in particular the country-of-origin principle. I think these are the guidelines we need to work on over the coming months.

The second category of disparities concerns the transparency of the advertising market. In France, the media advertising market is transparent, thanks to the Sapin law and Médiamétrie. The digital advertising market, however, is less so, since platforms often own their audience measurement schemes, and their calculation methods are often opaque.

This means they can negotiate with advertisers who have neither the means to verify the reality of the audiences they are being sold to, nor the capacity to ignore the largest digital media.

This is one of the issues addressed by the European regulation on media freedom, with the stated aim of supporting media that produce professional information, by affirming the principles of transparency, impartiality and comparability of audience measurement schemes.

I know that work is underway within Médiamétrie's " cross video committee" , involving several platforms, to develop a unified method of audience measurement, whatever the diffusion channel. These initiatives are a step in the right direction, and Arcom is obviously ready to contribute.

Finally, I'd like to share two convictions with you:

The first is that the challenge for the regulator is not to defend historical media on principle, or because they are French, even if there are questions of sovereignty. What is at stake is the ability to produce and diffuse ambitious programs, and in particular high-quality news; this is a "public good" of vital importance to our democracies, a good that has no price (particularly at the moment) but does have a cost, and so its production must be supported.

My second conviction is that, at a time of convergence between audiovisual and digital, the logic of confrontation between media (TV, radio, press, non-linear services), and between public and private, is no longer relevant. The real frontier lies elsewhere: between, on the one hand, the media that acquire, produce and diffuse, be it creative content, sports or news, and on the other, the media that capture wealth they do not create, and often do not redistribute.

We must therefore remain united around our creative ecosystem, while gradually integrating players who are not yet part of it.

Thank you all very much.