The journalist from CNews, the news channel owned by Vivendi, will be responsible for boosting blue fishing radio audiences.
Pair Olivier Ubertalli
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Pwill ascal Praud succeed in boosting the audiences at half mast in Europe 1? The star journalist of CNews, who has officiated for years on RTL in the show The listeners have the floor, will leave the radio station of the M6 group at the end of the season. He will be present on the antenna of Europe 1 at the next start of the school year. This transfer, revealed by the sites Days et Factual, and which Point had confirmation, had been expected for months.
Last year, it almost came to fruition. But the host of Time for the prosits flagship twice-daily program (from 9 a.m. and 8 p.m.), had finally decided to stay on RTL for another season, with a contract running until June 2023. Just to avoid putting your eggs in one basket and to keep two very distinct employers, the M6 group and Canal+, owner of the CNews news channel.
Since then, audiences for Europe 1 have continued to plummet. In November and December 2022, the station on rue des Cévennes, in the 15e arrondissement of Paris, saw its cumulative audience fall by 0.6 points over one year, to 3.6%, and its audience share by 0.5 points, to 2.9%. The overall audience, 2 million followers, is almost the same as that of RFM, the music radio station of the same Lagardère group.
Vivendi soon master on board
The European Commission, which has launched an in-depth investigation into the Lagardère takeover, is expected to give the green light to the operation by mid-June. Vivendi has agreed to sell the Editis publishing group and the celebrity magazine Gala in order to avoid competition problems with Hachette and Paris Match. If he really wants to relaunch the blue fishing resort, Vincent Bolloré’s group and his family – his son Yannick Bolloré is chairman of the supervisory board – must rely on its headliners.
READ ALSOCNews: the secrets of the success of Praud and Zemmour’s channel
The synergies have already started a few months ago. Europe 1 has joined forces with Canal+ for its sports and cultural coverage, and shares journalists or presenters. Sonia Mabrouk works on both CNews and Europe 1, as does Laurence Ferrari. Rue des Cévennes, at the headquarters of Europe 1, in Paris, the Merlin studio has also been refurbished so that Laurence Ferrari, already on CNews, can host his show Punchline both on the channel and on the radio.
The arrival of Pascal Praud will make it possible to move up a gear. Since the start of the 2016 school year, the journalist has greatly contributed to the take-off of the audiences of CNews, (ex-iTélé). The morning, Time for the pros attracted between 400,000 and 500,000 viewers. The evening, The Hour of the Pros 2 attracts around 700,000 people on average. The rest of the future grid of Europe 1, in which Maxime Saada, chairman of the executive board of the Canal + group, would actively participate, will be discussed and negotiated in the coming weeks. A connoisseur of the Vivendi group pours out: “It is not excluded that Europe 1 will one day be renamed CNews radio. »