M6 drives past France 3 as the 3rd national channel

2011 was definitely a very good year for French private channel M6 with annual ratings from Mediamétrie confirming the RTL’s subscribers had passed those of France 3. This resulted in M6 becoming the third French national channel with a 10.8 % audience share, behind TF1 and France 2, and ahead of France 3 which closed 2011 at 9.7 % over one year, compared to 10.7 % in December 2010. Last year, French viewers watched TV on average for 3 hours and 47 minutes each, which is 15 minutes more than in 2010. Over the course of 2011, M6 was also the only historical national channel to show a rise in audience while TF1’s slipped 0.8 % to 23.7; France 2’s by 1.2 % to 14.9 %. Nicolas de Tavernost’s channel says that a lot of its success can be attributed to access to prime time short series such as Scène de Ménages and prime time events like movie Le petit Nicolas, and  reality TV show L’amour est dans le pré, an adaptation of  UK TV format Farmer Wants a Wife. The new DTT channels, that include TMC, W9, Direct 8, NT1, France 4 or Gulli among others, were once again the biggest winners as they saw their audience share climbing from 19.7 % in 2010 to 23.1 % in 2011. And maybe 2012 will be higher as six new DTT channels are supposed to launch next Fall The candidates had until yesterday to apply to the CSA, whose selection will be known in March. Movie dedicated channel AlloCiné TV announced it didn’t apply finally while Canal+ Group was reported still hesitating, and France Télévisions unauthorized by French gov.