As its predecessor the CSA had been doing since 2009, Arcom looked at the programs of 19 channels (Free TNT and Canal) for two weeks, in January and November 2021.
With a novelty: taking into account all news channels continuously, LCI and Franceinfo joining BFMTV and CNews in the scope of studies.
As a result, people seen as “non-white” represent only 14% of the tens of thousands of individuals who appeared in the programs viewed, a figure down 2 points compared to 2020 (16%) and “identical to the years 2014 and 2015”, deplores the regulator in its report submitted to Parliament.
In question, in particular, the “low proportion” of these people “in the news” and on the continuous news channels, where their share stops at 10%, against 15% for the historical generalist channels (TF1, France 2, M6, etc.) and 16% for DTT thematic channels (C8, TMC, W9, etc.).
Arcom therefore “encourages” the news channels to do better, even if BFMTV is the best student, with a rate of 14%.
In detail and by type of program, the share of people seen as “non-white” amounts to 17% in fiction (-1 point compared to 2020) and 19% in entertainment (1 point), against only 13% in magazines/documentaries and 11% (-3 points) in news programs, where they represent “43% of people with a negative attitude”.
A finding “all the more regrettable” as publishers are required to pay “particular attention” to “French news in newspapers”, in touch with reality, recalls Arcom.
More generally, television remains a distorting mirror of society. The presence of women there is “stable” at 39% (compared to 38% in 2020), still far from 52% of the French population, while the representation of disability, which affects around 20% of French people, “remains marginal” at 0.8% (0.2 points).
The study of an additional week during the April confinement also showed that the health crisis had not had a significant impact on these trends.
