France 24


France 24 is a French state-owned publicly funded international news television network based in Paris. Its channels, broadcast in French, English, Arabic and Spanish, are aimed at the overseas market.
Based in the Paris suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux, the service started on 6 December 2006. It is aimed at a worldwide market and is generally broadcast by pay television providers around the world, but additionally, in 2010, France 24 began broadcasting online through its own iPhone and Android apps. It is a provider of live streaming world news which can be viewed via its website, YouTube, and various mobile devices and digital media players. The stated mission of the channels is to "provide a global public service and a common editorial stance".
Since 2008 the channel has been wholly owned by the French government, via its holding company France Médias Monde, having bought out the minority share of the former partners: Groupe TF1 and France Télévisions. The budget of France Médias Monde is approximately €300 million per year. The current director of France 24 is Vanessa Burggraf.

Programming

France 24 is broadcast on four channels: in French, in English, in Arabic and in Spanish. Their playout is outsourced to Red Bee Media.
France 24's programming is divided more or less equally between news coverage and news magazines or special reports.
Along with 260 journalists of its own, France 24 can call on the resources of the two main French broadcasters as well as partners such as AFP and RFI.
In 2016, France 24 started sharing its French language night-time programming with the France-based France Info. According to Marie-Christine Saragosse, president and CEO of France Médias Monde, "part of the value added of this public channel" would be the fact that " will be wide awake while others would be sleeping".

History

Channel inception

The channel was created with the backing of president Jacques Chirac, with the aim of providing a French perspective of the news, which was dominated by English-language media outlets.

First project (1986–1999)

In 1986, then French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac expressed his desire for an international television news channel in French and had requested a report into the activities of current international broadcasts from France and noted the collective offering was "fragmented, disorganised and ineffective."
With the arrival of François Mitterrand as president in 1981 and the naming of Michel Rocard as prime minister in 1989, the government launched a new project, Canal France International, a package of programmes aimed at making programmes in French for foreign audiences, particularly in Africa, to be developed in parallel as a television channel.
The First Gulf War of 1990, relayed across the world by CNN International in particular, revealed the power of international news channels and their role in the formation of opinion. A parliamentary minister, Philippe Séguin, wished to create a French-language equivalent.
In 1996 to 1999, after nineteen governmental reports in ten years, Prime Minister Alain Juppé asked Radio France Internationale president Jean-Paul Cluzel to create a French international news channel. Cluzel proposed in 1998 to group TV5, RFI, and CFI within a corporation entitled Téléfi. The UMP-led government decided to follow that recommendation but, with the return of the Socialist Party to government and the nomination of Hubert Védrine, the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, favoured the augmentation of existing outlets such as TV5, which started to produce its own programming, notably its news bulletins, which in turn created its own news team.
Additionally with the creation of EuroNews in 1993, the media presence of France overseas became more complex, more fragmented, and costlier, without being able to rely on a true round-the-clock international news channel.

Relaunched project (2000–2004)

In 2002, President Jacques Chirac relaunched the project to create a French international news channel:
On 7 March, speaking in the French Senate in front of foreign delegates to France, and as part of his presidential campaign, Chirac said, "We must have the ambition of a big, round-the-clock news channel in French, equal to the BBC or CNN for the English-speaking world. It is essential for the influence of our country. For our expatriates, it would be a live and an immediate link to the mainland"
After his reelection, the first reflections were engaged at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, headed by Dominique de Villepin. Various technical options were examined at the time, in an unreleased report:
  • The purchase of EuroNews by the French state
  • Creation of an external channel, proposed by then-France Télévisions President Marc Tessier, approved by the previous government
  • An international version of LCI, proposed by Groupe TF1, which asked for a state subvention for the service
  • Strengthening TV5's news service, as suggested by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq reassured the authorities about the project, especially in February 2003, when the American broadcasters CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC opted not to broadcast the long applause given by the members of the United Nations Security Council after Dominique de Villepin gave his address on the Iraq conflict.
On 19 March 2003, Matignon opened offers to:
Elicit the development of an international news channel. Broadcasting primarily in the French language, this service will assure a more important and more visible presence of France in the worldwide battle of images, and to contribute to the pluralism of international information by offering to our viewers the choice of a different viewpoint on the news, marked by a singular point of view of our country on world affairs, by its culture and by its own ideas, and to value its historical links and its privileged geography. The international news channel must contribute to a long-lasting strategy of influence of France in the world.

By the application deadline on 22 April 2003, three candidates replied:
  • France Télévisions and RFI: to operate a channel entirely run by the public service sector;
  • Groupe TF1: proposed an international version of its LCI channel;
  • Groupe Canal+: proposed a news "factory" to reinforce its i>Télé channel, already seen in 47 countries but running at a financial loss.
One month later, a parliamentary commission gave its conclusion, voted with a unanimous decision by its members in the National Assembly, to form a public-owned corporation grouping all of the public broadcasters with the goal of launching the channel at the end of 2004.
Ignoring the work of the parliamentary commission, the government asked a member of the assembly, Bernard Brochand, to form a partnership between the applying candidates for the international channel, something which the parliamentary commission did not demand. Brochard unsuccessfully attempted to group both Groupe TF1 and Groupe Canal+. He then proposed a 50/50 partnership between France Télévisions and Groupe TF1, both groups possessing the technical means and experience of broadcasting externally: TF1 with its LCI channel and France Télévisions' editorial teams at France 2 and France 3.

Preparing for launch (2004–2006)

Defying parliament

After a press conference in January 2004, President Chirac wished for a launch of the channel towards the end of the year. However, various disputes began to surface. The ministers of the assembly that voted were angry that the recommendations voted for in the parliamentary commission were thrown out in favour of one prepared outside the parliamentary framework. Unionised journalists working for France Télévisions denounced the potential alliance with the private sector, calling it "the marriage of the snake and the rabbit"; Radio France International was angry that it would not be associated with the project. A headline published in Le Monde described the partnership having a "public channel, private owner", while other sections of the press criticised its modest budget of 80 million euro. Finally the Minister for Foreign Affairs had worried that the budget would take away from existing funded channels such as TV5.
Facing discontentment, the cabinet of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin delayed all discussion of the project in 2004. Then Foreign Minister Michel Barnier announced on 21 July that the channel would not be funded before 2007, which was confirmed by a vote in parliament on the Finance Bill.
However, the Prime Minister acceded to pressure from the Élysée; a press conference by Raffarin on 9 December confirmed the launch of the new news channel in 2005, "I have decided to accept the proposed joint venture proposed by France Télévisions and TF1. As desired by the President, the new channel will draw on the talents of major French television companies, and will promote the expression of a French vision, more necessary than ever in the world today. The Government will present an amendment to the Finance Bill to provide for the start of the channel, to a total of 30 million euro." The amendment was carried the same day in the National Assembly.

Public-private angst

The start of 2005 concerned obtaining the authorisation necessary from the European Union and the relevant competition commissions. Trade union members working for France Télévisions continued to voice opposition to the project and circulated a petition in March 2005. The newly elected president of the public corporation, Patrick de Carolis, who assumed his position in the summer, expressed doubts about an alliance with TF1, "To be effective, you need a single driver in a car".
He insisted that the channel be made available within France, which the members of parliament required, and which TF1, wanting to protect its own news channel LCI, could object to. Patrick Le Lay, president of TF1, gave his blessing for the channel to be broadcast domestically and wished the direction of the channel to alternate every six months between the two parties, and eventually a supervisory board devolved to France Télévisions. These few amendments needed new authorisation from the French and European authorities, obtained this time round without difficulty.