The president of Radio Classique denounces the "eviction" of private radio stations by public radio

2023-09-14T12:53:37.080Z

Highlights: "We are at arms absolutely unequal" vis-à-vis public radio, lamented the president of Radio Classique. Pierre Louette, also CEO of the group Les Echos-Le Parisien, called for a "competitive rebalancing" in terms of frequency allocation. "We suffer from a chronic lack of frequencies," said Louette at the conference of return of the station.Radio Classique claims one million daily listeners, including 400,000 for the morning, which has adopted a new formula.

"We are at arms absolutely unequal" vis-à-vis public radio, lamented Thursday the president of Radio Classique, calling for a "competitive rebalancing" in terms of frequency allocation...

"We suffer from a chronic lack of frequencies," said Pierre Louette, also CEO of the group Les Echos-Le Parisien, at the conference of return of the station.

"Our radio station is the leader in audience against its public service competitor (France Musique, editor's note) even though it has six times fewer frequencies. Look for the error," he said.

This "seems to me to be a very deep competitive asymmetry. It is a fight that I wish to continue in the future," he added, adding that he would bring this subject to the States General of Information announced for September by the Elysee.

"The budget, moreover, of Radio France is greater than all the budgets of all private radio stations combined. This is not exactly what we imagine in a competitive radio landscape, "said the CEO of Les Echos-Le Parisien.

If the 1986 law was designed in a context of fears for public radio in the face of the arrival of private radios, "today, we are witnessing rather a beginning of effect of eviction of private radios by public radio," he said.

"At the rate at which we are allocated frequencies, it would take twenty or thirty years to join the total frequencies of our main competitor, this is not normal," he continued.

According to the leader, Radio Classique currently has a hundred frequencies against "80-85" three years ago.

"It is also not normal that, in some places", Radio Classique is refused a frequency on the pretext "+that, in this region, there is already classical music provided by France Music+".

"This is exactly the negation of the principles of competition," he said.

"We could redistribute frequencies altogether. We would have some of these radio frequencies while waiting for DAB+ (currently being deployed, editor's note) to completely put us on an equal footing," suggested Louette.

Radio Classique claims one million daily listeners, including 400,000 for the morning, which has adopted a new formula under the leadership of Hervé Gattegno, formerly of the JDD and Paris Match. This summer, he succeeded Guillaume Durand as head of the station's editorial staff.

CGU/PR/MCH/ABL

The president of Radio Classique denounces the "eviction" of private radio stations by public radio

Trends 24h

Latest