In general, the French media are subject to a statist logic, which certainly has a long tradition. This has been especially true since 1944, i.e., since the postwar reconstruction and the complete reorientation of the media markets. A strengthened role for the state was intended to counteract the free play of market forces and prevent, for example, the press from being corrupted by foreign powers – as had happened before 1939. Press corporations operating independently of the state, as was common in Anglo-Saxon liberalism, were discouraged. The broadcasting monopoly was to last until 1982.

However, a close connection between the state and the media, or more precisely: the close connection between high-ranking politicians and editors-in-chief, the interference, the influence of leading politicians on the media, still exists. For example, there were the often-cited threatening phone calls from former President Sarkozy to disobedient journalists. The head of state also still has the privilege of arranging prime-time interviews on major TV channels: on the state-run France 2 and even on the private TF1. And the press is still dependent on public subsidies and tax breaks. The result: every year, surveys reveal doubts about the sovereignty of journalists and a general disenchantment with the media. This French peculiarity in the role of the state is particularly evident in the example of centralism. Despite all the decentralization plans, France is still considered the epitome of centralism, including in the media. All national newspapers, magazines, and book publishers are based in Paris and the surrounding area. The "audiovisual landscape" (PAF – Paysage audiovisuel français, as it is commonly known), i.e., the entire television and radio market, is also located in the greater Paris area. A proximity to those in power that, as we have seen, is certainly desirable.

Another peculiarity and striking feature of the French media is the capital invested outside the industry since the liberalization of broadcasting in the 1980s. This has been done by industrialists who profit from public tenders: the main television channel TF1 was acquired by the construction group Bouygues during the privatization in 1987; in the early 1980s, the defense and aerospace group Matra (now Lagardère) bought the largest French publishing house, Hachette, and today owns a number of newspapers, magazines, television, and radio channels. Lagardère is now majority owned by Vivendi – France's largest media group. The green light has been given for a complete takeover. In 2004, an arms dealer and aircraft manufacturer also entered the media business: Serge Dassault bought the Socpresse publishing house, part of the media empire of the late Robert Hersant (Le Figaro). Today, La Figaro remains owned by the family of the now deceased entrepreneur.

General Information

Inhabitants: 67.39 million (2020)
Households: 32.09 million (2020); 27.6 million (2011)                
Average household size: 2.1 people (2020); 2.31 people (2011)                       
Religions: Roman Catholic (64.3%), Muslim (4.3%), Protestant (1.9%), Buddhist (1%), Jewish (0.6%)                        
Big cities: Paris (2.27 million inhabitants), Marseille (850,000), Lyon (484,000)
Form of government: Parliamentary presidential democracy with two chambers      
Head of State: Emmanuel Macron (RE, since 2017)
Prime Minister: Élisabeth Borne (RE, since 2022)
EU accession: 1952 (founding member)
Unemployment rate: 7,9% (2021); 9,8% (2012)
State indebtedness: 2021: 2,790 billion euros; 2012: 1,834 billion euros        
Budget balance relative to GDP: 2021: -7,05%; 2012: -4,8%                        
Share of global GDP: 2,3 % (2021); 2,72 % (2012)                            
Digital advertising spending: 10.19 billion euros (2022)                        
Television viewing time per inhabitant: 219 mins per day (2021); 227 mins per day (2011)                    
Large media and communication companies: Vivendi, Lagardère, France Télévisions, TF1
Monthly public broadcasting fee: Funding of public broadcasting from tax revenues (since November 2022)

Historical Foundations

The French newspaper industry looks back on a long history: The first weekly newspaper, La Gazette, appeared in 1631, the first daily newspaper in 1777 (The Journal of Paris) – although the readership was naturally limited to a narrow circle of an educated elite. The golden age of the French press began after the end of the Second Empire 1870, and ended with the outbreak of World War I in 1914. During this period of the Third Republic, with increasing literacy, the spread of rotary presses, the emergence of railway and telegraph networks, and the law of July 29, 1881 (guaranteeing freedom of the press), a massive expansion of the press landscape can be documented: in 1887, 1,665 titles were published in Paris alone, and the newspaper became the first mass medium. By 1914, a total daily circulation of over nine million was recorded; in terms of per capita circulation (244 per 1,000 inhabitants), France ranked first in Europe. The best-known and highest-circulation daily papers (priced at five centimes) were Le Petit Journal, Le Petit Parisien, Le Journal and Le MatinAfter the end of the First World War, readers turned more to the regional press. They had become somewhat alienated from the major Parisian newspapers—the biased, sometimes censored, and patriotic reporting during the war years had been too obvious.

During the Second World War, i.e., under German occupation, the cards were reshuffled. After the traumatic and, to a large extent, unexpected (military, political, ideological) defeat of 1940, France lay devastated – largely occupied by its arch-enemy. Under these circumstances, the radio, which was just emerging, gained a significance that cannot be overestimated: as an important propaganda tool for those in power (Radio Paris, Radio Vichy), and as the voice of the Resistance and Free France (Radio London). The image of the French press was similarly divided. There was the collaborationist press sanctioned by the occupiers, and there were the other papers, most of the Parisian dailies, which relocated to southern France, which was initially (until November 1942) unoccupied. In addition, some were published only clandestinely, and some ceased to be published at all.

Television also played a role at that time, albeit an insignificant one. In May 1943, the German occupiers set up the Paris TV station (Germany had already recognized the propaganda qualities of the new medium) for wounded soldiers in Paris, with a transmitter at the Eiffel Tower, under the direction of former Berlin broadcaster Knut Hinzmann. Since there were no video recordings, almost nothing of the broadcasts has survived (only a few recordings intended for the German newsreel).

After the traumatic experiences of the war years, nothing less than a revolution took place in the French media. All newspapers and broadcasters that had not been banned were found guilty of collaborating with the occupiers. The radio station and the press agency Havas were nationalized and from then on were called RDF (Radiodiffusion Française) and AFP (Agence France Presse), respectively. All newspapers that had been published two weeks after the start of the occupation on June 25, 1940, were banned. Of the 206 daily newspapers published in 1939, only 28 were able to continue publishing after the war. The major publishing houses were also dissolved. A profound upheaval: hardly anything remained of the pre-war media system.

A new press emerged, newspapers from the resistance and the underground, mostly communist (Défense de la France, Le Franc-tireur, Liberation, La Voix du Nord, Albert Camus' moderate left-wing Combat). In addition, new foundations were established in August 1944 (Le Parisien libéré, Sud-Ouest, Ouest-France) and in December 1944 (Le Monde), and traditional titles that were re-admitted (Le Figaro, L'Humanité, Le Populaire, Les Échos, Le Progrès, L'Est républicain). A period of great prosperity followed for French newspapers: the daily papers had a circulation of more than 15 million (370 newspapers per 1,000 inhabitants: a figure never to be reached again).

Interestingly, in this context, big business and, in principle, everything that came from Paris still had a taint of collaboration. This was probably a key reason why the regional press was able to increase its circulation after the war from 5.5 million (1939) to over nine million (1946). While the highly politicized newspapers from the liberation period declined from 1947 onwards, a traditional news press was able to establish itself (France-Soir, Le Parisien libéré, Le Figaro, Le MondeIn 1969, for example, the daily circulation was 13 million (five million for the national newspapers, eight million for the regional papers): it was the heyday of the French daily press.

The ruling center-left government had the following priority for radio: It should primarily serve the goals of the post-war state. Broadcasting policy therefore provided for clear measures: All private radio stations were shut down, the transmitters confiscated, and the entire medium nationalized. A state monopoly was created under the responsibility of the Minister of Information, subordinate to the goals of the respective government. Officially, there were no private radio licenses in France. In reality, however, there were the so-called Radio stations: Private stations that were located just across the border but could be received in large parts of France, e.g. RTL (Luxembourg), Europe 1 (Saarland), RMC (Monaco), Sud Radio and Radio Andorre (Andorra).

The television era began somewhat slowly in France; in 1961, fewer than 20 percent of households owned a television set. Then things moved quickly: the second channel was launched in 1964, color television was introduced in 1967, and by 1969 there were already over 10 million televisions in France. Radio and the press, as the leading entertainment, cultural, and information media, were overtaken by television at the end of the 1960s. Like radio, television was a public affair. The policy of a state monopoly was not questioned; it went hand in hand with the idea of central economic control and collectivism, which was favored in postwar France. State broadcasting was also intended to forestall Americanization and uphold French cultural values. Private-sector competition was ruled out—until Mitterrand's broadcasting reform in 1982.

François Mitterrand was elected in May 1981, the first left-wing president of the Fifth Republic. The 1982 audiovisual reform was a radical structural reform intended to bring about far-reaching liberalization of French broadcasting. The state renounced its broadcasting monopoly, and the broadcasting license for private radio stations remains a symbol of this spirit of optimism to this day. Canal+, Europe's first terrestrial pay-TV channel, was launched at the end of 1984, and two further terrestrial private stations (La Cinq, TV6) were approved in early 1986. The establishment of the broadcasting supervisory authority, the Haute Autorité de la communication audiovisuelle, was also highly symbolic. The main aim here was to wean public broadcasting off the state patronage that had become established during the era of de Gaulle and Giscard d'Estaing. The directors of radio and television stations, for example, would no longer be appointed by the President, but by the “Haute Autorité”.

Politicians, however, were reluctant to completely stop interfering and exerting influence. When the bourgeois parties won the 1986 parliamentary elections and the first "cohabitation" (between socialist President Mitterrand and the bourgeois Prime Minister Chirac) occurred, the French public broadcaster TF1 was privatized and the "Haute Autorité" was replaced by the "Commission Nationale de la Communication et des Libertés" (CNCL), each headed by figures favored by the right-wing parliamentary majority. In 1988, after Mitterrand won the presidential elections for a second time and a new center-left government was subsequently elected, the CNCL supervisory authority was replaced by the CSA (Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel), which was transformed into the Autorité de régulation de la communication audiovisuelle et numérique (Arcom) in 2022. Another groundbreaking media policy event during Mitterrand's second term was the implementation of the project for a Franco-German cultural channel. Initially available in both countries via cable and satellite, Arte was also assigned the terrestrial frequency of the insolvent La Cinq in France at the end of September 1992.

Former President Nicolas Sarkozy also brought considerable movement to the media system; his media reform was passed in early March 2009. The most important measures included the advertising ban on public television, its future financing (new taxes for private broadcasters and for internet and mobile phone providers), and the highly controversial appointment of the director of public television stations solely by the President. This directive, in particular, provoked concerns both at home and abroad. The direct line between the executive branch and the leadership of public broadcasting represented an "unbearable regression" (Télérama). These were unmistakable signals from the Élysée: back to state television. In 2013, large parts of this highly controversial reform were reversed.

Current President Emmanuel Macron has always been a staunch critic of France's public broadcasting system. Even before his first election as French President, he made it clear how little he thought of the current system—especially its funding. Fundamental reforms took place in 2022, the year of his re-election. Even before his second term, the regulatory authority for audiovisual and digital communications, Arcom, began operations. The merger of the Supreme Audiovisual Council (CSA) and the High Authority for the Distribution of Works and the Protection of Rights on the Internet (HADOPI), was intended not only to eliminate excessive bureaucracy but also to create an authority appropriate for the digital age of the 2020s.

At the end of May, about a month after Macron's re-election, the French government announced that it would abolish the broadcasting fee completely. However, funding for public broadcasting will continue to be ensured through a budget in the national budget. In August 2022, France's Constitutional Council, the Conseil Constitutionnel, approved the plan. In November of that year, the license fee was no longer collected for the first time.

The largest media groups in France

The well-known newspapers from the early phase in the mid-19th century have all disappeared, but the early major players in the media business are still there to some extent: Havas, one of the world's oldest press agencies, merged into Compagnie Générale des Eaux (now Vivendi) in 1997, and the venerable publishing house Hachette was acquired by the Matra Group (now Lagardère) in 1980. Since 2021, Vivendi has held a 57.35 percent stake in Lagardère. In addition to two of the four largest French media groups, Vivendi and Lagardère, the public broadcasting holding company France Télévisions and TF1, which essentially consists of the private broadcaster of the same name, should be mentioned.

Vivendi

Vivendi is by far the largest media group in France today. However, there was a time when it was considerably larger. Around the turn of the millennium, under the then 41-year-old Jean-Marie Messier, the company set its sights on becoming a global powerhouse. Messier embarked on a wild buying spree, merging with the cinema and production group Pathé and finally with Seagram, which in turn owned the Hollywood studio Universal and the major label Universal Music. He bought various telecom and dot-com companies, UMTS licenses, and stakes in satellite operators. It was a growth frenzy, a mindless expansion that brought the company to the brink of collapse and ended in the 2001 financial year with a record loss of €13.6 billion. Messier was forced to resign in July 2002. His successor, Jean-René Fourtou, respected as a tough restructuring expert, sold off large parts of Vivendi over the next few years, until essentially only the group remained in its current structure: music (Universal Music Group, global market leader), TV and film (Canal Plus Group, pay-TV, film production and distribution), telecommunications (SFR).

Unrest followed at Vivendi headquarters. After several changes, Arnaud de Puyfontaine took over as CEO in 2014 – a position he still holds today. Prior to this, the group was plagued by persistent financial losses. The bad news came primarily from the mobile communications division, which is suffering from fierce competition in France from a new competitor (the low-cost provider "Free," Iliad SA): Vivendi's profits fell by 11.2 percent for the first half of 2013. These problems were already apparent in 2012, and there was soon talk of restructuring the group and splitting it into two parts. CEO Lévy, who refused to accept such plans, was summarily dismissed by the supervisory board at the end of June 2012, and legal counsel Jean-François Dubos was appointed as his successor. The spin-off of the struggling mobile communications business was finally completed in 2014.

In February 2020, Vivendi decided to spin off its Universal Music Group subsidiary and list it on the stock market. 60 percent of UMG's capital could be distributed to the group's shareholders. However, this spin-off proved more difficult than expected. After 20 percent of the company had already been sold to the Chinese internet giant Tencent in two steps, a further 10 percent was to be sold to the investment firm Pershing Square Tontine Holding (PSTH) before the IPO. However, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) put a stop to this plan. Instead, star investor Bill Ackman acquired the stake. On September 21, 2021, UMG's IPO was followed by a slump in Vivendi's share price, which temporarily fell by two-thirds. By midday that day, however, the combined prices of Vivendi and UMG shares represented a 15 percent increase over the previous day's closing price of Vivendi shares.

In September 2021, it was announced that Vivendi plans to acquire a majority stake in its French competitor Lagardère, along with its associated publishing houses, broadcasters, and magazines. The largest purely European media group is being created. "To finance the acquisition," according to Der Spiegel, "Vivendi could, on the other hand, divest its retail activities." The Financial Times wrote in May 2022: "The impending takeover of France's largest publisher, Hachette (part of Lagardère), by billionaire Vincent Bolloré has caused an uproar in the French literary world." Or rather: "Book industry facing mega-takeover - France's book lovers sound the alarm." Vivendi already owns Editis, the second-largest French publishing group; with Hachette, the number one would become the new owner. This would create the third-largest publisher worldwide after Penguin Random House (Bertelsmann) and HarperCollins (News Corp.).

Lagardère

Even Lagardère, which is now majority-owned by Vivendi, once played in a different league. Initially a major French corporation in the aerospace, automotive, and defense sectors, it then also made headlines in the media following its acquisition of Hachette in 1980. It was Jean-Luc Lagardère (1928-2003), a legendary French entrepreneur, the epitome of the family capitalist, and one of the founders of EADS, who built the conglomerate and then transformed it into the Lagardère Groupe in 1992. His son, Arnaud (born 1961), took over management after his father's death and halved the company over the following decade. In 2002, the Lagardère Group had 45,500 employees and total revenue of €13.2 billion; in 2021, it had 27,000 employees and revenue of €5.1 billion. What remains is a pure media group, active in the areas of press, publishing, press distribution, sports rights as well as TV specialty channels, radio and multimedia.

For a long time, it wasn't clear what Arnaud Lagardère was up to. For a long time, his main concern seemed to be selling everything that didn't interest him, anything that wasn't media-related. Then he focused on the sports rights division he had established, which had so far been running at a significant loss. At the annual general meeting in early May 2013, he announced that sooner or later he would also divest from the traditional media (radio, television stations), which were too dependent on the advertising market. His response left shareholders and journalists astonished.

In spring 2018, CEO Lagardère announced another comprehensive reorientation, with the publishing division Lagardère Publishing and Travel Retail as the future priority divisions, the sale of media assets followed, for example of: Boursier.com (business portal); the tabloid brand Point de Vue; the portals Doctissimo, My Doctor, Billetreduc.com, Plurimedia, Doctipharma; television holdings; radio stations in Eastern Europe and Africa; and magazines, for which the Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky paid a total of 52 million euros and, as the taz wrote, quickly bought up a "small media empire" in France under the umbrella of Czech Media Invest. Media titles that Lagardère retained were consolidated under the Lagardère News logo in 2018. On September 2, 2019, Lagardère was able to sell the TV business (excluding Mezzo) to the M6 Group for 215 million euros. And the company has also said goodbye to the sports business, which it entered in 2006 with the takeover of the sports rights agency Sportfive. In mid-April 2020, the investment firm HIG Capital acquired 75.1 percent of Lagardère Sports and Entertainment for approximately $110 million. This was followed by a further renaming of the company to its new-old name, Sportfive.

Now Lagardère will disappear. The other French media giant, Vivendi, has been planning a Lagardère takeover for some time, buying the 17.5 percent stake in Lagardère SA from British investor Amber Capital in December 2021 and now holds a stake worth 57.35%. However, Vivendi's takeover plan had drawn criticism because the merger would give Vivendi control of a large part of the French book market: Hachette Livre, owned by Lagardère and France's largest publisher and the sixth-largest book group in the world, and Editis, owned by Vivendi and France's second-largest publisher and ranked 26th worldwide. However, Vivendi announced that it wanted to divest Editis "to avoid concentration problems with the Lagardère Group." This clears the way for a full takeover.

France Télévisions

The multi-billion-dollar public broadcasting group France Télévisions is the legal successor to the state-owned RTF and the ORTF broadcasting group. Today, the TV holding company brings together France's public TV channels, from the public flagship France 2 and the more regionally oriented France 3 to the cultural and educational channel France 5, all of which are available via digital terrestrial television TNT (French DVB-T). In addition, until its discontinuation in 2020, the cable, satellite, and TNT-distributed channels France 4, the feature film, series, comedy, and music channel (target group: 15-34), and France Ô (with programs from the overseas territories).

The first major project of Delphine Ernotte, president of the broadcaster since 2015, was the creation of a continuous public information channel drawing on the resources of France Télévisions, Radio France, France Médias Monde, and the National Audiovisual Institute (INA). In 2016, the website of the new public information service, called "France Info," replaced FranceTVInfo, the France Télévisions news site launched in 2011. This was the first visible step in the creation of the new public broadcaster's information service.

Group TF1

At the heart of the TF1 media group is the TV channel of the same name – which emerged from the state broadcaster RTF, founded in 1947, France's oldest major television station. In 1987, the government privatized the channel, and the contract was awarded to an entrepreneur from outside the industry who had long worked for the public sector: property magnate Francis Bouygues. After a fierce bidding war with Lagardère, broadcast live on TF1, Bouygues won the contract. Today, the Bouygues Group holds a 43.9 percent stake in TF1.

In addition to its main programming, TF1 now broadcasts a number of specialty channels on pay-TV platforms and was the majority owner of the pan-European sports channel Eurosport for many years. With a market share of 19.7% (2021), TF1 remains the undisputed number one in the French TV landscape and by far the most-watched private general-interest channel in the major European markets.

Press

The daily press has been in decline for a long time. In October 2007, the French Senate published a "Rapport d'information" on the press crisis under the dramatic headline: "Daily Press: Chronicle of a Death Foretold?" Recall: After the war, there were 28 national and 175 regional/local dailies with a total circulation of 9.2 million. At the height of its heyday in the late 1950s, the circulation was as high as 13 million (five million for the national papers, eight million for the regional ones). And today? In 2021, according to the official circulation statistics OJD, there were only eight national dailies (plus the English-language International New York Times, which is also published in Paris but has a circulation of just under 4,000 copies in 2021). The eight national titles had an average circulation of around 1.6 million in 2021. In addition, there are 46 regional newspapers with a circulation of almost 3.3 million copies.

The French press has never played a dominant role, as is the case in Great Britain and Germany, for example. The reason given is always the lack of large, heavyweight Sunday and tabloid newspapers, which were never able to establish themselves in France. And this despite the numerous subsidies (loans, tax breaks) that the state provides here: in 2009, according to the Élysée, this amounted to 1.4 billion euros as part of a package of press funding measures. State funding for the press, which, incidentally, has a long tradition, as the French press has never operated independently of the state and has never stood on its own two feet economically. The very first newspaper, La Gazette, received financial support from Cardinal Richelieu in 1631.

It's no surprise that the total circulation of print media is declining year after year, while digital subscriptions and reading PDF versions are booming. Other reasons cited for the gradual decline in circulation figures include printing, distribution, and labor costs, which in France are far above the European average. This is in addition to the advertising crisis, which particularly affects the newspaper business, and, last but not least, the flood of free news from the Internet. The crisis is particularly tangible in two examples: two renowned daily newspapers, the traditional paper France-Soir (founded in 1944, the largest newspaper in France in the 1960s) and the business newspaper La Tribune have discontinued their print editions. France-Soir was published online only since December 14, 2011, and was discontinued entirely on July 23, 2012. In contrast, La Tribune was able to establish itself in the online market after discontinuing its print edition on January 31, 2012.

In return, the experienced journalist Nicolas Beytout (former editor-in-chief of the Figaro and from The Echoes), when he set about founding a new newspaper in May 2013 – against the backdrop of declining circulation and the demise of newspapers, in the midst of the crisis. The new economically liberal, pro-European paper is called L'Opinion and is, as the slogan at its founding revealed: “Un média nouvelle génération”, i.e. “A medium of the next generation” – on paper, on the Internet (with a paywall), as an app for smartphones and tablets.

Today, the most well-known titles beyond the country’s borders are:

Le Figaro, France's oldest newspaper (since 1826) with a conservative, economically liberal stance and for a long time the largest-circulation national daily newspaper – today it ranks a respectable second. Until his death, the newspaper was owned by former senator (member of the conservative UMP), aircraft manufacturer, and arms dealer Serge Dassault (1925-2018). One of the richest Frenchmen, the businessman was also the son of the legendary aviation entrepreneur Marcel Dassault. Serge Dassault took over the Socpresse publishing group, which publishes Le Figaro and emerged from the media empire of the "press tycoon" Robert Hersant (1920-1996), in 2004. Today, Le Figaro remains in his family's possession.

Le Monde (est. 1944), a left-liberal, leading opinion-forming daily newspaper, and now by far the country's largest-circulation daily, even ahead of Le Figaro. In 2010, the financially troubled newspaper was acquired by a group of bidders led by fashion entrepreneur Pierre Bergé (1930-2017), who was close to the Socialist Party and the former partner of Yves Saint Laurent. Then-President Sarkozy tried to prevent this takeover and threatened to withdraw state subsidies – without success. Since 2019, Czech entrepreneur Daniel K?etínský has also held shares in the newspaper.

Liberation, initially a left-wing extremist (Maoist), today a moderately left-wing daily newspaper of intellectual standing, founded in 1973 by Jean-Paul Sartre, among others. The notoriously financially weak traditional newspaper of the French left caused a great stir in 2005, when Baron Édouard de Rothschild, a member of the famous banking dynasty, invested 20 million euros for a 37 percent majority stake in LiberationThe now profitable pact between investors and left-wing (quarrelsome) journalists has been questioned for years. Liberation has been in the red for years. From 2014 to 2020, Libération was owned by Patrick Drahi, an industrialist who heads the Altice group, of which he also owns a large part. In 2020, Drahi assumed the daily newspaper's debts amounting to €55 million. An additional €20 million was added for further financing. Since 2020, Libération has had a new director, Denis Oliviennes, a well-known French journalist. In September 2022, Daniel K?etínský's CMI press group (Elle, Marianne, among others) agreed to provide Libération with an additional €14 million in credit to cover its current losses. The new business plan envisages a balanced result by 2026. The newspaper appears to be saved—at least for now.

Humanité, another newspaper with a clear political profile. Founded in 1904, "L'Huma" served as the "central organ" of the Communist Party from 1920 to 1994. Since the 28th Party Congress in 1994, it has been called simply "Newspaper of the PCF" ("parti communiste français"). Today, the newspaper is published by the Société nouvelle du journal l'Humanité under the chairmanship of Jean-Louis Frostin and Patrick Le Hyaric, the latter also serving as publication director. Humanité are affected by the difficult conditions of the French newspaper market: circulation fell from 400,000 copies in 1945 to only 38,000 in 2021 – in 2013 the circulation was still 60,000 copies.

Also worth mentioning at this point: The Amaury Group (belongs to the Amaury family 100 %, is also the organizer of the Tour de France and the Paris-Dakar Rally) publishes both the third most widely circulated French daily newspaper The Parisian (Title of the Paris edition, in the rest of the country the newspaper is called Today in France, total circulation 2021: 254,886) as well as the internationally renowned sports daily The Team (Total circulation 2021: 214,130).

Fig. I: Average circulation of national daily newspapers in France in 2013 and 2021

Source: OJD (2021)

Television

The first television station in France was launched in 1931. In the following decades, the television market gradually grew due to the increasing number of television sets in households and the number of television channels. In 1949, only 297 households had a television, and the television market was limited to a single government-run television station. By 1965, approximately 40 percent of French people owned a television capable of receiving the two state-run television channels.

Even though linear television faces increasing competition from online streaming services, television consumption has barely changed over the past 20 years. After rising from 204 minutes watched per day in 2008 to 230 minutes in 2012, average television consumption has been largely declining ever since. Following a low of 210 minutes in 2019, 2020, a year largely shaped by the coronavirus pandemic and the associated lockdowns, saw a peak of 234 minutes per day. In 2021, the figure fell back to 219 minutes.

Fig. II: Average daily television viewing time in France per day (2005-2021)

Source: Statista Research Department (2022)

Overall, the history of television in France has been shaped by several pivotal events. First, in 1975, when the state television monopoly was somewhat broken with the establishment of a third, equally state-owned channel. A second major turning point was the arrival of private television in the 1980s, from which the private channels Canal+, M6, and La Cinq emerged. Equally significant, however, was the founding of the public broadcaster ARTE (1992), which was created in cooperation with the German government and can also be received there in German.

Since the 2000s, the television landscape in France has continued to change and become increasingly less concentrated. Until the beginning of the 2000s, French households had access to fewer than 10 national television channels free of charge. Digital terrestrial television (Télévision Numérique Terrestre, TNT) was introduced in March 2005. This system initially offered 14 television channels, including five new ones. By 2022, TNT offered 30 national channels—including five pay channels—and 42 local channels.

The various channels cover three traditional business model categories: public television (financed by public tax revenue, covering all France TV Group channels), free private television (funded primarily by advertising and commercials), and private pay TV (Canal+, which offers free programs alongside mostly paid programs, as well as all TV channels included in subscription TV packages via satellite). Furthermore, with the establishment of the internet, these business models have largely expanded their offerings to include streaming services.

public television

The TV market is concentrated on four main players – one of which remains an important player. France Télévisions SA, a public limited company under state control, was founded in 2000 as a holding company for public television channels, all of which are also broadcast via TNT. As of 2018, the public broadcaster France Télévisions alone (revenue: €3.1 billion in 2021) operates five channels (France 2, France 3, France 4, France 5, France Ô), all of which are available free of charge and financed by tax revenues. The public broadcaster's flagship remains France 2 as the venerable general chain (14.7% market share in 2021). France Télévisions is also a shareholder in seven other television channels. These include the Franco-German cultural channel Arte (France Télévisions holds 45% of the shares in Arte France) and La Chaîne parlementaire, which broadcasts from the National Assembly and the Senate.

Free private television  

Three other major players are private. At the top of the list of private television channels is TF1, Europe's most-watched private general-interest channel, which emerged from the state broadcaster RTF, founded in 1947. Despite a declining market share for years (19.7% in 2021, compared to 22.7% in 2012, and even 30.7% in 2007), TF1 remains the undisputed number one in the French television landscape. TF1 is the main television channel of the Bouygues Group (along with eight other channels, including TMC, TFX, LCI, and Histoire), a major international industrial holding company active primarily in construction, real estate development, and subsidiaries in the telecommunications and media sectors (TF1 Group revenue: €2.4 billion in 2021).

RTL Group is a leading European entertainment company and the majority shareholder of the M6 Group in France (2021 revenue: €1.39 billion). M6 is France's second largest private broadcaster. Founded in 1987 as "Métropole Télévision," M6 ranks fourth in the 2021 ranking of most-watched channels, behind TF1, France 2, and France 3.

Other free private channels include the children's channel Gulli (M6), the news channel LCI (TF1) and the general television channel TMC (TF1) of Monegasque origin.

Private pay TV

Canal+ was founded in 1984 on the initiative of Mitterrand and was awarded one of only six terrestrial frequencies at the time. Today, Canal+ is part of the Vivendi media group and is the largest pay-TV provider in France, with 9.6 million subscribers on the French mainland in 2022. In total, Canal+ had 23.9 million subscribers in 2022 and is the second-largest pay-TV provider in Europe after the British Sky Group, with a program including current cinema films, top-flight football, news, and documentaries. The Canal+ Group (2021 revenue: €5.8 billion) comprises four television channels (Canal+, C8, CStar, and CNews). It and its holding company, Vivendi, have been managed by French businessman Vincent Bolloré since June 2014.

Other pay channels include Eurosport (Warner Bros. Discovery), the news channel LCI (TF1) and Paris Première, the culture and capital channel broadcast by M6.

Finally, in 2017, the French spent an average of 3 hours and 42 minutes a day watching television, compared to an average of 1 hour and 23 minutes a day online. In 2017, TF1 (private) was still the leader with a 20 percent market share. France 2 (the state-owned group France Televisions' first channel by audience) attracted 13 percent, while M6 attracted 9.5 percent and France 3 (a mix of regional news and entertainment programs) was the fourth TV channel (9.1 percent). The first breaking news channel is BFM TV, the leading TV channel of News Participation, a private media conglomerate owned by Patrick Drahi, which attracts 2.7 percent of daily viewers.

For a long time, significantly longer than in Germany, for example, television was received primarily via the home antenna. Only hesitantly did people begin to use other distribution channels. As a result, cable and satellite television never managed to gain a lasting nationwide presence. It is therefore understandable that it took a development like terrestrial digital television (DVB-T) to achieve this.Télévision numérique terrestre – TNT) so that the French “audiovisual landscape” (PAF – French audiovisual landscape, as it is commonly called) to catch up with the other major television markets (USA, Germany, Great Britain) and to create a comparable, i.e. similarly extensive, range of channels.

French DVB-T went live on March 31, 2005, and today reaches approximately 97 percent of the population, making it the most important TV reception method. Analog terrestrial television was switched off on November 30, 2011. TNT currently offers 32 nationwide channels: seven public broadcasters, 17 private broadcasters, and eight pay TV channels. In addition, there are 48 smaller channels that are only available locally or regionally.

Table I: Market shares of the largest French TV channels in 2021

Rank	transmitter	organizer	Market share
1.	TF1	Group TF1	19,7 %
2.	France 2	France Télévisions	14,7 %
3.	France 3	France Télévisions	9,4 %
4.	M6	Group M6	9,1 %
5.	France 5	France Télévisions	3,3 %
6.	TMC	Group TF1	3,0 %
7.	Arte France	France Télévisions, French State, Radio France, INA	2,9 %
8.	BFM TV	Altice Media	2,9 %
9.	C8	Canal+ Group	2,6 %
10.	W9	Group M6	2,5 %
11.	CNews	Canal+ Group	2,0 %
12	RMC Discovery	Altice Media	2,0 %
13.	6th	Group M6	1,6 %
14.	The Team	Amaury Group	1,5 %
15.	TFX	Group TF1	1,5 %

Source: Mediatria (2021)

radio

Radio consumption in France remains high. According to Médiamétrie, almost 79 percent of young people and adults in France listen to at least one radio station every weekday: 69 percent of this audience listens to commercial stations, 26 percent to public broadcasters (another 1.5 percent to community stations, and 3.3 percent to foreign and other radio stations). Regarding the type of radio they listen to, 42 percent of listeners stated that they primarily listen to news and entertainment programs, 31.5 percent to music radio, 14 percent to local programs, and 9 percent to cultural programs and classical music. On average, French teenagers and adults listen to 170 minutes of radio per day, most of them to more than one radio station.

Following liberalization in the 1980s, the radio market today consists of public broadcasters (i.e., the state-owned Radio France group) and approximately 900 private operators. The private broadcasters with the largest audiences are owned by the large media groups RTL, NRJ, and Lagardère News, which also own other media companies (television, newspapers, magazines, and online media). These three share roughly half of the total market. Compared to television and the press, the broadcasting landscape is less focused on the local level and more on the national level, with the exception of the public sector, which is covered only by Radio France.

From an economic and business perspective, the broadcasting landscape can be defined by two components: the type of ownership (state, commercial and community) and the audience reach (national vs. regional/local).

Radio France
Radio France was founded on January 1, 1975, after the dissolution of the state-owned Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française (ORTF) and took over the existing radio programs. Today, Radio France comprises seven stations: the flagship station, the general-interest channel France Inter, which had the highest market share in France in 2022; the news channel France Info (third most listeners in 2021); France Bleu, with a program for older listeners (ranked eighth in 2022); and France Culture (cultural word program, 13th place); France Music (classical music, jazz, 18th place); The Mouv' (youth channel); FIP (Music, 19th place).

RTL
The RTL Group, which belongs to the M6 Group (formerly majority-owned by Bertelsmann), also operates three radio stations in France, with the eponymous full program RTL at the top, the oldest private broadcaster in Europe. Long the most successful radio station in France, RTL was dethroned by the public broadcaster France Inter in 2019. Founded in 1933, RTL was produced in Luxembourg after the war and until the broadcasting reform of 1982 and was a so-called "poste périphérique" (only public broadcasters were allowed to broadcast from France itself). In addition, there is the pop/rock music station RTL2 and Fun Radio (Chart Music). From 2007 to 2012, RTL had RTL-L'EquipThere is also an internet channel (sports news).

NRJ
The NRJ Group (French acronym for "énergie") was founded in 1981 with the Parisian radio station of the same name and is today one of the major players in the French media market (radio, television, internet) with a total turnover of around 365 million euros in 2021. The radio portfolio in France includes NRJ (Chart music, 4th place in the overall ranking), nostalgia (French chanson and pop classics, 7th place), Chérie FM (Mainstream, 14th place) and Rire and Songs (Comedy, Pop/Rock, 16th place).

Lagardère News
Lagardère News is the TV/radio and press division of the French media group Lagardère SCA and a major player in the French radio market with the stations Europe 1 (one of the leading news/talk radio stations in France, ranked 10th overall), Virgin Radio (Chart Hits, No. 15), RFM (“The Best Music”, 12th place).

Table II: Market shares of the largest French radio stations in 2022

Rank	transmitter	organizer	Market share
1.	France Inter	Radio France	12,3 %
2.	RTL	RTL Group	9,9 %
3.	France Info	Radio France	8,7 %
4.	NRJ	NRJ Group	7,9 %
5.	Skyrock	Vortex SA	5,8 %
6.	RMC	NextRadioTV	5,8 %
7.	nostalgia	NRJ Group	5,6 %
8.	France Bleu	Radio France	5,1 %
9.	RTL2	RTL Group	3,9 %
10.	Europe 1	Lagardère News	3,7 %
11.	Fun Radio	N6 Group	3,4 %
12.	RFM	Lagardère News	3,1 %
13.	France Culture	Radio France	3,1 %
14.	Chérie FM	NRJ Group	3,0 %
15.	Virgin Radio	Lagardère News	2,6 %
16.	Rire and Songs	NRJ Group	1,9 %
17.	Classic Radio	Les Echos-Le Parisien Group	1,8 %
18.	France Music	Radio France	1,6 %
19.	FIP	Radio France	1,1 %
20.	M Radio	Espace Group	1,1 %

Source: Mediatria (2022)

Internet

It all began with the very special Minitel system, developed in the 1970s and represented by the free Minitel terminal: a testament to a time when France was still at the forefront of technology. Initially, it was intended only for telephone directory assistance; later, within the closed system, bank transfers, weather reports, the first chats, and travel bookings were also possible. The medium became famous and particularly successful with the sex services it offered ("Minitel Rose"): At its peak in 2000, Minitel had 25 million users on nine million devices.

The French were thus prepared for the internet from the USA, which the French Minitel could no longer compete with in the 2000s. Nevertheless, many were unwilling to part with the "box at the end of the telephone" (FAZ); there were still about two million Minitel owners in 2010. But then the state-owned telephone provider Orange (formerly France Télécom) pulled the plug: The service was no longer profitable and was shut down on June 30, 2012.

So, people were familiar with a precursor to the internet (not unlike Apple's centrally controlled App Store), but because of Minitel, the connection to the "real" internet was somewhat delayed. While in 2002, only around 30 percent of households used the internet, by 2012, that number had risen to 83 percent, and by 2021, it had reached 91 percent. Looking at the ranking of the most popular websites, the usual American internet giants dominate in France as well. Major news portals (online offshoots of the renowned daily newspapers Le Monde and Le Figaro) are not even found in the top 10.

Table III: The most visited websites in France in 2022

Rank	Webpage:	Description	Parent company
1.	Google.com	Search engine	Alphabet Inc.
2.	YouTube.com	Video portal	Alphabet Inc.
3.	Facebook.com	Social network	Meta Platforms, Inc.
4.	Google.fr	Search engine	Alphabet Inc.
5.	Orange.fr	Web portal, email	Orange SA
6.	Amazon.de	e-commerce	Amazon.com, Inc.
7.	Wikipedia.org	Encyclopedia	Wikimedia Foundation
8.	Twitter.com	Social network	Twitter Inc.
9.	Leboncoin.fr	e-commerce	Adevinta
10.	Instagram.com	Social network	Meta Platforms, Inc.

Source: Similarweb.com

Regulations

France also has a number of laws and regulations regulating the media system. These include, for example, the Law on Freedom of Access to Information and Transparency of Decision-Making (Loi relative à l'accès aux documents administratifs et à la transparence de la vie publique), which regulates access to government information, and the Law on Freedom of the Press (Loi sur la liberté de la presse), which protects freedom of opinion and journalistic expression.

For a long time, a point of contention in French media policy was the structure and composition of the state regulatory authorities – namely the Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Œuvres et la Protection des Droits sur Internet (HADOPI) and the Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel (CSA). Founded in 2009, HADOPI was specifically responsible for monitoring and regulating the internet and digital media sector, in particular managing copyright and combating online piracy. It was also tasked with promoting digital culture and encouraging the development of digital content in France. Even then, it worked closely with the CSA to ensure that the French media industry and digital culture were protected and promoted. In 1989, the CSA replaced its predecessor organizations, the Haute Autorité de la communication audiovisuelle (1982-1986) and the Commission nationale de la communication et des libertés (1986-1989). He was primarily responsible for monitoring and regulating radio, television, and the internet. He was also responsible for compliance with laws and regulations in the audiovisual media sector.

On October 31, 2013, the reform announced by Culture and Communications Minister Aurélie Filippetti in June 2013 was passed in parliament. Nicolas Sarkozy's controversial media reform of 2009, which was particularly criticized for the perceived increased state influence on media regulation, was substantially revised. The regulatory authority CSA (now Arcom) was granted the right to propose the presidents of the public broadcasting groups France Télévisions, Radio France, and France Médias Monde (France 24, RFI, Monte Carlo Doualiya) every five years. The positions are therefore no longer appointed directly by the President. Furthermore, it was stipulated that the governing body of the then CSA would consist of only seven members, and that the President himself would appoint only the head of the authority.

HADOPI and the CSA merged in early 2022 to form the Autorité de régulation de la communication audiovisuelle et numérique (Arcom). With the merger of HADOPI and CSA, the authority was essentially transferred to the newly created Arcom. Its overarching mission is to promote the quality and diversity of audiovisual content in France and ensure that viewers' rights are protected. The authority's executive body is composed of nine members: three are appointed by the President of the Senate, three by the President of the National Assembly, two each by the Council of State and the Court of Cassation, while the Arcom President is appointed directly by the President of France.

Regarding public broadcasting in France, it should be noted that, despite all the criticism from politicians, the media, and the public, it is still largely valued. A 2018 study showed that public broadcasting in France plays an important role in gathering information and shaping public opinion. Nevertheless, criticism continues to arise, not only regarding the issue of funding, which was incorporated into the 2022 fee reform to finance taxation, but also regarding the design of the program, particularly with regard to political influence on reporting. In the wake of the Yellow Vest protests in 2018 and 2019, for example, the government was accused of attempting to influence coverage of the protests in its favor.

Sources/Literature

• Christian Brochand, General history of radio and television in France, 3 volumes, Documentation française, 1994-2006.
• David Hein, Discovery takes over majority stake in Eurosport, Horizon, 2014.
• Emmanuel Hoog, La Télé, a direct history, Discoveries Gallimard, 2010.
• European Audiovisual Observatory: Yearbook 2012.
• Hans Bredow Institute (ed.): International Handbook Media 2009Media systems in Europe, 2009.
• Jean-Noël Jeanneney (ed.), L'Echo du siecle. Dictionnaire historique de la radio et de la télévision en France, Hachette, 2001.
• Matthieu Lardeau, France, Media Landscapes, 2022.
• Mediametry, The Audience of Radio in France in September – October 2022, November 2022.
• Médiamétrie: Part d'audience 2021 / évolution sur un an / évolution sur deux ans / part d'audience sur les FRDA-50 / évolution sur un an / évolution sur deux ans. A trait signifies an absence of donations for the annual concern.
• Pascal Siggelkow and Wulf Rohwedder, What are Macron’s plans for public broadcasting?, Daily News, 2022.
• PwC: Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2013-2017.
• Raymond Kuhn, The Media in Contemporary France, McGraw-Hill, 2011.
• Similarweb, Top Website Ranking: The most visited websites in France, 2022.
• Statista Research Department, Daily television viewing time of individuals in France 2005-2021, 2022.
• Stefanie Markert, The fees go – broadcasting stays, Daily News, 2022.
• Stuart Thomson, Canal+ sees revenue and subscriber numbers rise again, Digital TV Europe, 2022