Playing Monopoly with the French press

by Anna Maria Merlo, Paris, il manifesto, Oct. 21 2015

The media. In France, half a dozen billionaires are taking control of all the media that matter. Meanwhile, politicians and regulators are silent, leaving journalists and readers to suffer the consequences.

Pichet et journal, Georges Braque

Repor­ters nowa­days are a bit like steel wor­kers in the 1980s — hostage to a sec­tor in cri­sis — as bil­lio­naire media moguls play a giant game of Monopoly.

That’s what’s hap­pe­ning right now in France​.As con­so­li­da­tions become com­mon­place around the world, the heads of French firms have moved espe­cially swif­tly to bring the lar­gest outlets under their control.

The latest was the new acqui­si­tion of Le Nou­vel Obser­va­teur and Télé­rama by the co-owners of Le Monde, inclu­ding the busi­ness­man Xavier Niel and the ban­ker Mathieu Pigasse (who also owns Radio Nova). They have joi­ned for­ces with Pierre-Antoine Cap­ton, who con­trols the tele­vi­sion stu­dio Troi­sième Œil Pro­duc­tions, to create an invest­ment fund cal­led Media One.

With about €300 mil­lion to €500 mil­lion, they plan to “take advan­tage of the win­dow of oppor­tu­nity for acqui­si­tions in the media.” Media One is loo­king first to France but also abroad, in Spain, Ger­many and Italy. The pro­ject will take the form of a “spe­cial pur­pose acqui­si­tion com­pany” — a type of firm built spe­ci­fi­cally to acquire shares of at least 75 per­cent in an entire sector.

Big media, big­ger owners

Media One isn’t the first com­pany to “take advan­tage” of sales in the French media.

The move­ment began at the begin­ning of the cen­tury, when big names in the busi­ness world — Ber­nard Arnault of LVMH, Fra­nçois Pinault of Kering and Serge Das­sault, the heir to an arms for­tune — star­ted taking an inte­rest in new­spa­pers. Das­sault bought Le Figaro, Pinault took con­trol of the wee­kly Le Point through the hol­ding com­pany Arte­mis and Arnault acqui­red the country’s main busi­ness daily Les Echos.

Now, Arnault, who in 1993 took pos­ses­sion of the other French busi­ness daily, La Tri­bune, and later sold it, has expan­ded his media empire by buy­ing the popu­lar daily Le Pari­sien. In 2010, Pigasse, Niel and the entre­pre­neur Pierre Bergé took over France’s main daily broad­sheet Le Monde, which was first mana­ged by jour­na­lists and readers.

The finance mogul

Mea­n­while, finance magnate Patrick Drahi is erec­ting a small empire in the infor­ma­tion indu­stry. Having acqui­red the tele­com ope­ra­tor SFR, he bought on cre­dit Libé­ra­tion, then L’Express and then all of BFM-TV.

That’s just the begin­ning of the tele­vi­sion takeover.

Mar­tin Bouy­gues, who owns the lar­gest public works firm in Europe, also main­tains posi­tions in TF1, the lar­gest net­work in Europe (though the audience has gra­dually decli­ned since Jac­ques Chi­rac pri­va­ti­zed it in 1987).

Vin­cent Bol­loré, pre­si­dent of Vivendi — one of the big­gest enter­tain­ment groups in the world, along with Uni­ver­sal and Canal + — has bro­ken onto the scene by impo­sing his point of view, cen­so­ring repor­tage (a cri­ti­cal story about the bank Cré­dit Mutuel was can­ned), can­ce­ling the sati­ri­cal pro­gram Les Gui­gnols and put­ting the bra­kes on an inve­sti­ga­tion into the soc­cer club Olym­pi­que de Mar­seille (a sen­si­tive area because of broa­d­ca­sting rights for games).

Then there’s the web. Le Figaro is to acquire Ben­ch­mark, and Bol­loré took con­trol of DailyMotion.

Visi­bi­lity, influence and gain

Media histo­rian Patrick Eveno sum­ma­ri­zes the moti­va­tions of the new cap­tains of the media indu­stry in three words: visi­bi­lity, influence and gain. Essen­tially, half a dozen bil­lio­nai­res are about to take con­trol of all that mat­ters in the French media.

The visi­bi­lity of the acqui­si­tions boosts their pre­stige in the busi­ness world, as Drahi has done with his pur­chase of Libé­ra­tion. The media shape public opi­nion, giving peo­ple like Das­sault influence in poli­tics affec­ting his other con­cerns: like govern­ment invest­ments in his firm’s Rafale fighter jet.

With a pre­sence on all fronts — print, radio, TV and inter­net — these owners master the entire chain.

The new owners can also exploit the respec­ted brands of histo­ric titles, which pro­fit, not only from adver­ti­sing sales, but also from orga­ni­zing con­fe­ren­ces that are often sub­si­di­zed by local or foreign govern­ments. (Libé­ra­tion, for exam­ple, has just orga­ni­zed a “Citi­zens’ Forum in Gabon,” a key fran­co­phone nation.)

The media is a buyers’ mar­ket, with pri­ces stee­ply discoun­ted amid indu­stry tur­moil and often discoun­ted fur­ther by heavy sub­si­dies to the sector.

Arnault spent more than €50 mil­lion for Le Pari­sien, which has reve­nues four times that much and balan­ced books. Drahi paid the same amount for L’Express. And it was a great deal for Niel, Pigasse and Bergé who bought Le Nou­vel Obser­va­teur for lit­tle more than €10 million.

Even the €300 mil­lion to €500 mil­lion that Media One wants to invest is only a drop in the buc­ket for the com­pa­nies of the part­ners. (For exam­ple, it’s about 3 per­cent of the stock mar­ket value of Niel’s com­pany Iliad.)

Jour­na­lists and rea­ders left alone

There’s a chance these con­so­li­da­tions will clash with anti-trust laws. But less than two years away from France’s next pre­si­den­tial elec­tion, in 2017, these bil­lio­nai­res aren’t afraid of reac­tions from poli­ti­cians who will need their coverage.

The jour­na­lists who remain at these publi­ca­tions are in no posi­tion to pro­test these restruc­tu­ring plans. From Le Monde to Libé­ra­tion to La Tri­bune, eve­ryone has seen their new­srooms redu­ced. Drahi has already taken out the hat­chet at L’Express, where 115 jour­na­lists who resi­gned were not repla­ced and 240 seats are being pha­sed out in all departments.

But that’s not the worst pro­blem. Owners have pro­ven wil­ling to inter­vene in edi­to­rial decisions.

Bol­loré, which also con­trols the com­mu­ni­ca­tions agency Havas, is crea­ting an ear­th­quake at Canal + and i-Télé, the 24-hour news net­work, which have taken a clear turn to the right, with layoffs and sha­keups in the new­sroom leadership.

There was already an inci­dent at Canal +, when the new host of the pro­gram “The Grand Jour­nal,” Maï­tena Bira­ben said, without any repri­sals from her guests, that the con­ser­va­tive Natio­nal Front “deli­vers true speech” in which “the French reco­gnize them­sel­ves.” It’s a new era for Canal +, the lar­gest finan­cier of French cinema, in which right-wing thin­king and con­tempt for “do-gooders” finds no opposition.

Originally published at ilmanifesto.info and in Italian at il manifesto here