Belgian financier Albert Frere, one of CLT-Ufa's main shareholders through his holding company Audiofina, has joined the newly-appointed supervisory board of M6 and been named vice president of the French free TV broadcaster.

CLT-Ufa - now renamed RTL Group, following its merger with UK group Pearson's television interests - is a major shareholder in M6, along with utilities giant Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux. The two companies each hold 34% of the voting shares.

The move is in line with a recent major revamp of M6's managerial structure, which saw the creation of the supervisory board as well as an executive board.

The structure clearly separates the shareholding structure from the day-to-day running of the channel and was apparently designed to alleviate potential problems rising from the shared control of the channel by CLT-Ufa and Suez.

M6's chairman Jean Drucker has been named chairman of the supervisory board. Other members include RTL Group's Ewald Walgenbach and Suez's newly-appointed chairman Gerard Mestrallet.

M6's second-in-command Nicolas de Tavernost has been elected chairman of the executive board which include five members: Tavernost, Thomas Valentin, Robin Leproux, Jean d'Arthuys and Laurent Agrech.