The verdict would have fallen if we are to believe the information of Capital. In his war against France Télévisions, Patrick Sébastien (68) would have emerged triumphant, although the sum obtained is far from what he wanted.
If the latest news, the former presenter of Biggest Cabaret in the world and happy years claimed 5 million euros from his former employer, our colleagues from Capital claimed that he had tried to obtain the sum of 26 million euros. The decision was up to the commercial court and according to the information on the site, France Télévisions was ordered to pay 652,251 euros to Patrick Sébastien’s production company dubbed Magic TV for “sudden termination of commercial relations”.
The case dates back to 2018 when, after twenty-three years of good and loyal service, the presenter was ousted from France 2. The news was announced to his wife and producer Nathalie Boutot. It was then program director Takis Candilis who called her to explain to her that her husband’s contract would end in June 2019. News that Patrick Sébastien had a hard time digesting. He therefore took the decision to sue his ex-employer. “Patrick Sébastien, 66, brought France Télévisions before the commercial court, via his production company Magic TV, which was in “a situation of economic dependence” since 1996 [année de son arrivée dans le Groupe, NDLR]”, had revealed The Parisian at the time. By specifying that the end of this collaboration resulted in the “dismissal of most employees of his production company.
In court, France Télévisions reportedly explained that the audience for its broadcasts was “continuously decreasing” and “the unit price of emissions was very high compared to the average”. The group would have justified itself by stating that “the drop in the number of programs and their unit cost is not due to abuse, but to good management of public funds…. Patrick Sébastien’s company was perfectly aware of the channel’s audience constraints , and well aware of the budgetary restrictions affecting the public service“. And to add that Magic TV would have “maintained a very high margin, despite the unit price reductions granted“. Arguments that would have convinced the judges. On the other hand, the court condemned the ex-employer of Patrick Sébastien on one point: “France Télévisions, with an order volume during the last season significantly below the order volume of previous seasons, did not execute the notice maintaining the relationship to the previous conditions”. France Télé therefore had to pay the gross margin that would have been earned during the last season if orders had remained at the previous level.