The Comité National Olympique et Sportif Français, the French Olympic committee, selected L’Equipe TV, the pay-television channel owned by daily sports newspaper L’Equipe, to act as a partner for a proposed new digital-terrestrial television sports channel.
L’Equipe TV beat a rival proposal from media company NextRadioTV in a final vote by the committee board. NextRadioTV still plans to submit a bid for a DTT licence, and the French government is expected to award licences for six new channels in March. NextRadioTV said that it was disappointed with the committee’s decision and criticised the “transparency” of the process, adding that it could seek compensation.
Committee president Denis Masseglia said the correct procedures had been followed during the tender, and said: “We identified the different elements of funding and governance as well as the relationship we wanted.”