Pascal Praud, figurehead of the CNews channel, will make his radio comeback on Europe 1, also in the bosom of billionaire Vincent Bolloré, announced, Wednesday July 5, the station, a few days after his departure from RTL. “From August 28, Monday to Friday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.”, the host “will take control of ‘Pascal Praud and you’ live around all the subjects that make the news”, according to a tweet. from Europe 1.

“It makes me very happy to join the big house Europe 1, the big blue house”, reacted the host in a video posted by his new employer.

For months, the press announced its next arrival on Europe 1, radio of the Lagardère group, whose absorption by Vivendi, group of Vincent Bolloré, has just been authorized by the European Commission under conditions.

On June 30, Pascal Praud, 58, announced his departure from RTL (M6 group), where he had been presenting the midday segment since 2018. “Life will be elsewhere, without you,” he said. at the end of the last season issue of his show, “Listeners have the floor”, but without specifying its destination.

Stabilized audiences

This transfer, the most important of the media transfer window this season, should bring Europe 1 and CNews even closer, who already share several headliners, such as Laurence Ferrari and Sonia Mabrouk.

The press echoed a difficult choice for the host, who is leaving the second most listened to radio station in France (10.1% cumulative audience in the first quarter) for a channel whose audiences have stabilized (3.9% cumulative audience in the first quarter) after more than a decade of plummeting.

Will the arrival of Pascal Praud allow Europe 1 to turn the corner? On CNews, his program “L’Heure des pros”, where he leads debates on current topics, surrounded by columnists, many of whom are very right-wing, seduces the public: it brings together around 400,000 viewers in the morning and 600,000 in the evening.

So far, the multiple grid changes have never succeeded at Europe 1, including its merger with CNews, at the origin of a historic strike in the summer of 2021, which resulted in massive departures, coerced or coerced. Many voices then denounced Vincent Bolloré’s “growing hold” in the media, the billionaire being regularly accused of wanting to transform them into opinion media.

A new strike is also underway in another title of the Lagardère group, Le Journal du dimanche, its editorial staff denouncing the arrival at its head of the journalist marked on the far right Geoffroy Lejeune, former editor of Values current.

Before becoming the strongman of CNews, Pascal Praud was a sports journalist for a long time, notably for “Téléfoot” on TF1.