France: LCI goes FTA on April 5
February 23, 2016
From Pascale Paoli-Lebailly in Paris
TF1’s pay-TV news channel LCI will shift to free DTT on April 5th, as part of the Mpeg-4 switch-off that will see all FTA DTT channels in France turn HD.
The French regulator CSA made the announcement after signing the official agreement and confirmed that LCI will be broadcast on channel 26.
Owing to the rules applied to LCI being a FTA channel, the programming output of the channel will be renewed with less room given for live news (less than 30 per cent), and more to reports and magazines. In prime-time slots, the channel will have to carry shows about culture, international news, economics and French social diversity.