France’s media landscape is undergoing a shift,as CNews concluded 2025 as the nation’s most-watched news channel for the first time,edging out long-time leader BFMTV. The audience share figures, released Monday by Médiamétrie, reflect a growing trend favoring the channel owned by conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré. This advancement comes amidst ongoing debate and accusations of political bias within the French media ecosystem, and follows a year of increased scrutiny of the channel’s editorial direction.
CNews finished 2025 as France’s most-watched news channel, capturing 3.4% of the audience share, surpassing BFMTV’s 2.8%, according to figures released Monday by the Médiamétrie institute. This marks the first time the channel, owned by conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré, has held the sole lead in viewership for an entire year.
In 2024, CNews and BFMTV were tied for first place with 2.9% audience share. The shift in viewership underscores a changing media landscape in France.
While BFMTV, owned by billionaire Rodolphe Saadé, reaches a larger number of viewers – 45 million in December compared to CNews’s 39 million – CNews benefits from viewers watching for longer periods of time.
For 2025, the Canal+ Group channel ranked as the sixth most-watched national channel, just 0.1 percentage points behind France 5. TF1 remains the leader, with 18.7%. Within the news channel category, CNews and BFMTV outperform LCI (2%) and Franceinfo (0.9%).
“This is a magnificent success,” Canal+ France CEO Gérald-Brice Viret told the French news agency AFP. “CNews is consistently growing and has found its editorial positioning.” Key figures at the channel include Pascal Praud, Laurence Ferrari, Christine Kelly, and Sonia Mabrouk.
“A Far-Right Channel”
CNews has frequently been accused by left-leaning political figures of promoting far-right ideologies, allegations the channel denies. In mid-September, amid heightened tensions between media outlets linked to Bolloré and France’s public broadcasters, France Télévisions CEO Delphine Ernotte Cunci publicly labeled CNews a “far-right channel.”
Media groups within the Bolloré sphere, in turn, have accused Radio France and France Télévisions of bias in favor of the left. The accusations highlight a growing divide in the French media landscape.
During a December hearing before a parliamentary inquiry into the neutrality and funding of public broadcasting, Delphine Ernotte-Cunci argued that the public broadcaster and CNews “do not do the same job.” She also suggested that the law be amended to allow for “opinion channels.”
In September, CNews CEO Serge Nedjar described the channel as “a channel of opinions, with an ‘s’.” “We don’t take sides,” he told Le Figaro.
