While thirty-four positions are targeted by the PES, nearly half of the local locations of the two stations are to disappear.
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It’s not just Radio Europe 1, in the Media Cluster of the Lagardère Group, which attracts all eyes, since Vincent Bolloré has become the first shareholder. There are also Virgin and RFM musical networks, which, gathered within the same economic and social unit (UES), are the target of a job safeguard plan (PES). Announced on October 7, it refers to the removal of thirty positions of journalists and four animators scattered throughout the territory, on a global number of about 140 people.
While the musical radios, defied by streaming platforms, record a sharp drop in their audience, their economic model based on advertising returns would scop it? “Our two radios brought back to the group 3.6 million euros of dividends in 2020, even though the year was complicated by COVID-19,” defend Laurent Lemaire and Jean-Charles Fontlip, respectively Trade Union Delegates CFDT and SNJ-CGT, for whom “this PSE is not justified”. According to expertise mandated by the Social and Economic Committee (CSE), between 2014 and 2020, RFM and Virgin paid 46.8 million euros of dividends to their parent company.
The directions of the two stations, however, make another reading of the accounts, separating the results garnered by the national, positive entities, those of the local antennas, deficit. An unfair method of calculation in the eyes of the representatives of employees who recall that, the rest of the time, the economy is “globalized” within the UES.
“Inappropriate strategies, contradictory”
From the two stations, it is Virgin who suffers the most. In 2020, the station saw its consolidated operational result register in the red, at – 500,000 euros, when RFM’s RFM joined + 5.2 million euros. Virgin is also the station whose hearing is the least flourishing: with 2.8% cumulative hearing between April and June, it lost 1.4 points compared to the same period of 2019 (4.2%), before the health crisis. While RFM climbed 4.1%, between April and June, in 2019, it was 3.4% in the spring of 2021.
“For several years, as Europe 1, our two radios have severely suffered from the inconsistencies of a governance chosen by the group,” condemn elected officials in a statement, pointing to the “changes of incessant leaders, inappropriate strategies, contradictory strategies and even sometimes non-existent at crucial moments, the gel of human and material investments “. However, Virgin is preparing to pay the heaviest tribute: while the two networks cumulate 71 anchor points in the country, twenty-six Virgin stations are expected to disappear, when RFM plans to sacrifice four.
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