The French have never had such an appetite for news channels. Last June, they had an audience share of 9%. The public service news television channel France Info remains the last one, capping at 0.8% audience, far behind LCI (2.4% in June), CNews (2.4%) and BFMTV (3 .4%). France Info is watched every day by around 5 million French people, compared to 12 million for BFMTV.
To stick with the yellow jersey group, France Info is relying on very broad editorial coverage which is not limited to three or four subjects, giving pride of place to regional information, particularly from overseas, and to European subjects. Respectively at the presentation of 12/13 Info and 19/20 Info, Émilie Tran Nguyen and Sonia Chironi both claim “great editorial freedom”.
“We are never going to ask you to focus on this or that subject all day long and run only four pieces of information on the main news slots, namely the morning (6:30 a.m.-8:30 a.m.), 12/13 News, 19/20 Info, 11 p.m. Info. Our role is to be pluralist and have more diversity of information,” says Alexandre Kara, director of information at France Télévisions who replaced Laurent Guimier a year ago. He cites the example of the channel’s new environment program (Planète Info, from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m.), the recent broadcast of the speech on the state of the European Union or an election day to address the Caledonian referendum in December 2021. “The vocation of France Info is not to be sensationalist, nor mono-thematic, nor to have a bias,” continues Alexandre Kara.
The program schedule has been completely revised to improve readability. Jean-Baptiste Marteau (joker of France 2’s 1 p.m.) now presents the morning show, replacing Samuel Étienne. The 8:30 a.m. France Info is hosted by Jérôme Chapuis, from La Croix, and Salhia Brakhlia. Not reappointed to Europe 1, Philippe Vandel will interview a culture and media personality from September 25 (11:40 a.m.).
12/13 Info is presented by Émilie Tran Nguyen, from France 3, while Sonia Chironi took over 19/20 Info. Alexandra Uzan in charge of 11 p.m. Info (Sorya Khaldoun from Friday to Sunday). In order to gain visibility on weekends, the channel is banking on Matthieu Belliard (ex-France 5 and ex-Europe 1) to host the 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. slot on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. From September 18, the public group is also launching C quoi l’info?, a 5-minute television news program aimed at 12-18 year olds, broadcast from Monday to Friday on YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, franceinfo.fr and France Info canal 27.
Objective: to increase audiences. “France Info is first and foremost a machine for producing information, before being a machine for generating audiences. The grid was first chosen for the editorial. I believe that it is thanks to the editorial quality that more viewers will watch us. Of course, our public service vocation is to be a channel watched by as many people as possible. I will be happy if this year we cross the 1% audience share mark,” says Alexandre Kara. Will the sauce take this year? According to the news boss of France Télévisions, Jean-Baptiste Marteau’s morning show on France Info has already been on par in terms of audience share with that of LCI presented by Jean-Baptiste Boursier, defector from BFMTV.
