BFM TV’s purchase in France, Belsat TV cuts in Poland – weekly news digest

Rodolphe Saade, French shipping billionaire, has purchased France’s leading news channel BFM TV. The deal, which includes the channel and radio station RMC, is valued at €1.55 billion. Pending regulatory approval, it is expected to close in the summer. 

“After buying the regional press group La Provence, the business news website La Tribune and launching La Tribune Dimanche, [Saade] is now at the helm of one of France’s leading media groups”, Le Monde writes. 

BFM TV was launched in 2004 and “rose to prominence in France in the 2010s, becoming a ubiquitous sight in bars and cafes across the country and often setting the media narrative”, Reuters notes. The channel says it has 12 million daily viewers.

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The Polish government is cutting the budget for Belsat TV, Poland’s flagship broadcaster for Belarus.

Launched in 2007, the channel aims to provide uncensored news to the Belarusian audience. It expanded operations in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, its main funder, is now reducing its annual contribution from 74 million PLN (€17.1 million) in 2023 to 40 million PLN (€9.3 million).

Belsat’s founder and director Agnieszka Romaszewska-Guzy, who openly protested the cuts, was dismissed from her position this week. 

The International Press Institute and partner organisations called on Poland’s MFA to reconsider its position, claiming that “the current plans may have a disastrous impact on Belarusians’ and Russian speakers’ ability to access independent news”. 

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Two years after a Russian missile attack on the Kyiv TV Tower led to the first killing of a journalist during the full-scale invasion, Russia is intensifying its physical attacks on Ukraine’s media infrastructure. 

Last week saw a mass drone attack on the TV infrastructure in the eastern Kharkiv region. At the same time Russian missiles damaged TV and radio facilities in the northwestern Sumy oblast.

The attacks caused multiple localities to lose access to TV and radio signals, though most of them have already been restored. Ukrainian authorities say the strikes are part of a coordinated attack against the media infrastructure.

Quick links — Three more news stories worth your attention:

• IPI: “Call for withdrawal of Slovakia’s repressive broadcast law”
• The New York Times: “Gannett and McClatchy Cut Back Relationship With A.P.”
• The Guardian: “ABC defends broadcasting Russia-Ukraine war documentary after ambassador calls it ‘bowl of vomit’”

Source of the cover photo: PierreSelim, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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