Television channels and radio stations will no longer be able to use night schedules to balance politicians’ speaking time, the audiovisual regulator, Arcom, has decided nine months before the presidential election. “The Arcom college has decided (…) to no longer take into account the speeches of political figures broadcast at night,” the regulator announced in a press release.
This decision will apply from October 1. The time slot in question is from midnight to 5:59 a.m., where audiences are very low.
Radios and televisions transmit statements of politicians’ speaking times each month to Arcom, which controls them a posteriori to ensure “fairness between the groups”. At the beginning of June, the public group Radio France was put on notice by Arcom for having under-represented the National Rally during the day.
Over the January-March period, which included the municipal elections, nearly 60% of the speaking time granted to RN representatives on France Inter was broadcast between midnight and 5:59 a.m., and more than 70% on France Info. Radio France had pleaded “technical error”.
Radio France and CNews pinned
At the end of November, the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) accused the television channel CNews of circumventing the rules by relegating left-wing leaders to the night and offering the best airtime, the 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. slots, to far-right leaders. RSF relied on data from March 2025.
At the same time, Arcom announced that it had not noted any breach of pluralism on the channel during the period in question.
In mid-June, Arcom ordered CNews to respect more the diversity of “currents of thought and opinion”, a broader field than that of speaking time. By no longer counting speaking times at night, “Arcom puts an end to a regulatory policy which had been largely misused by publishers, first and foremost CNews”, reacted the director general of RSF, Thibaut Bruttin, to AFP.
“RSF welcomes a choice which clarifies the contours of the control of pluralism in the perspective of the presidential election,” he added. Between now and October 1, Arcom says it wants to work “in consultation with publishers to adapt its control of speaking times, so that their ability to welcome political figures and keep the political debate alive is not affected.”
