Temps de lecture : 3 min 48 s

An intense chain of political events has just taken place, beginning on 9 June, when the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, announced the dissolution of the French National Assembly just minutes after the results of the European elections. The dissolution triggered legislative elections, which concluded on Sunday 7 July, after a whirlwind campaign full of twists and turns. What impact did these early, and unforeseen, elections have on television, programming and audiences?

Isabelle Maurice, Director of Studies, Monitoring and Forecasting at Médiamétrie, gives her assessment: “These elections were given a huge amount of media coverage. Television played a fundamental role in this election period, with a public in search of representatives. This is reflected by the record audiences we saw for the presidential address and election nights”.

A thunderous campaign launch on TV channels

On 9 June 2024, European elections night was covered by TF1, France 2 and the continuous news channels. TF1 came out on top with 5.9 million viewers and a 26.3% audience share, before switching to the friendly football match between France and Canada at 21:40. France 2’s election night lasted until midnight, with 3 million viewers on average and a 15.7% audience share.1

That night, the President of the French Republic made a five-minute statement at 9 p.m. announcing the dissolution of the National Assembly. In total, 15.3 million viewers watched the statement on TF1, France 2, BFM TV, CNEWS, LCI and franceinfo, meaning nearly 2 out of 3 viewers were listening to Emmanuel Macron (an audience share of 64.7%).

On 9 June 2024, European elections night was covered by TF1, France 2 and the continuous news channels. TF1 came out on top with 5.9 million viewers and a 26.3% audience share, before switching to the friendly football match between France and Canada at 21:40. France 2’s election night lasted until midnight, with 3 million viewers on average and a 15.7% audience share.

That night, the President of the French Republic made a five-minute statement at 9 p.m. announcing the dissolution of the National Assembly. In total, 15.3 million viewers watched the statement on TF1, France 2, BFM TV, CNEWS, LCI and franceinfo, meaning nearly 2 out of 3 viewers were listening to Emmanuel Macron (an audience share of 64.7%).

A chain of events followed closely on TV

This announcement kick-started campaigning for the legislative elections triggered by the dissolution. TV channels benefitted from a frenzy of interest and both general-interest channels and continuous news channels adapted their schedule to this breaking news.

As is a must in elections, TF1 offered viewers a debate on Tuesday 25 June, between Jordan Bardella, Gabriel Attal and Emmanuel Bompard, which was watched by 5.4 million people, or more than 1 in 4 viewers (a 26.3% audience share). Two days later, France 2 followed suit with a second debate, in which Olivier Faure represented the Popular Front. It was watched by 3.2 million people on average (a 17.7% audience share).

The continuous news channels benefitted greatly from these developments: between the four of them, they accumulated a 10% audience share in June, up 2 percentage points from May.

Other programmes, Access Prime-time shows on France 5 and TMC also dedicated a large part of their airtime to this eventful election, with different editorial strategies. C à vous on France 5 opted to regularly host political figures from the campaign as guests on the show, to question them about their stances. On average, 1.2 million people watched C à vous between 10 June and 9 July, a stable audience relative to the first half of the year. Quotidien favoured political commentators, inviting journalists, sociologists and economists to give their views. This show was watched by an average of 2.1 million people over the legislative elections period (from 10 June to 9 July), whereas from the start of January this figure was 1.9 million on average. As for Touche Pas à Mon Poste on C8, the show took a break for the summer from 13 June. From 10 to 13 June, 2 million viewers on average watched this show and its political guests; this figure was 1.9 million between January and the end of June.

Records for the election nights of 30 June and 7 July

As usual, TF1, France 2 and France 3 all provided coverage of the election nights on the two Sundays of voting in the legislative elections. An extraordinary election, with extraordinary audiences!

On the evening of 30 June, the programme dedicated to the first round of the legislative elections on TF1 came top, with 5.3 million viewers on average. It finished at 21:40 to allow the film Les Bronzés 3 to be shown. The election night coverage on France 2 lasted until after midnight and attracted 3.2 million viewers. France 3’s coverage went on until nearly 11 p.m., attracting 1.6 million viewers. The results were announced at 20:00 on all the channels, which corresponds to an audience peak of 19.2 million viewers between 8 p.m. and 8:05 p.m.

In the second round, 22.2 million viewers watched the results of the election on one of the nine channels that showed them, which translates into an 89% audience share. In other words, 9 out of 10 viewers at 8 p.m. on 7 July watched the outcome of the legislative elections on one of the dedicated channels. That’s almost 7 million more than in 2022! TF1 and France 2 attracted, respectively, 7.5 and 7.2 million viewers at 8 p.m., which is nearly a 60% audience share between them.

Meanwhile, more than 4 million viewers opted to find out the results of the vote on continuous news channels. So on 7 July 2024, an additional 1.2 million viewers watched the results of the elections on the four continuous news channels compared to the 2022 elections.
 

Television has once again shown itself to be an indispensable means of taking in information and following key events live, be it in politics, as is the case here, or in sport, with the major events of this summer.

Laure Osmanian Molinero

1 Source : Médiamat - Médiamétrie - All rights reserved