On December 1st the French broadcasting watchdog, the CSA (Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel) gave the go-ahead for the launch of two new television channels on DTT (canal 30) in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region.
“Provence Azur” will broadcast in the Marseille area, and “Var Azur” in the Toulon-Hyères area. The CSA’s license for them to transmit is valid for 10 years as from December 6th 2016.
The two channels will be operated by the same company, SAS Azur TV, which already has another local channel on the Côte d’Azur, based in Nice. They will have financial support from the PACA Region, which last July voted a budget of 1.25 million euros for the project.
“It’s a major contract and a big challenge,” Hervé Raynaud, chairman of Azur TV, said last June when the frequencies were being allocated. He welcomed the support of “some local authorities such as the Regional Council,” adding that the CSA also “appreciates that 95% of our programmes are about local issues, that we’re giving air-time to ordinary local people and that our economic model works.”
Although Marseille and its surrounding area have already had the benefit of a local DTT channel (between 2005 and May 2016: TV Sud Provence, formerly LCM), this is a first for the Var area. Provence Azur and Var Azur will each have their own premises, with about twenty staff in the first and half that number in the second.
They will have to keep to the specifications laid down by the CSA, which include an hour a day of local events and news, a national news programme of at least 5-minutes and programmes related to regional news. While Var Azur should start transmitting at the beginning of 2017, the launch of its Marseilles sister is not expected for several months.
Sources: Satellifax, Var Matin, Nice Matin
