Despite its short-lived broadcast period, TV6 left its mark on the television genre with personalities such as Jean-Luc Delarue, Childéric Muller and Alain Maneval and a new tone, inventing the "free antenna" and music TV.

[1][2] In November 1984, Léo Scheer, who designed and developed Canal+, left Havas and André Rousselet to join Publicis and Maurice Levy to implement a new commercial television project in partnership with Europe 1 Communications.

In 1985, a little over a year before the parliamentary elections in France, the ruling left feared failure and wanted to create a new space, outside the institutional domain of public television, that would reach a large audience (unlike Canal+ encrypted) and provide an opinion relay for its ideas if it were to return to the opposition.

The President of the Republic, François Mitterrand, then launched the idea of "an additional space of freedom" in a television interview on January 16 and asked Laurent Fabius' government to study the project.

It recommended the creation of two national private free-to-air television channels financed by advertising and whose frequencies would be granted by the State in accordance with Article 79 of the Law of July 29, 1982 on audiovisual communication.

This group, which in its form met the conditions laid down by the government's draft law, submitted its application for a public service concession contract to the High Authority for Audiovisual Communication.

[6] After the looping of a trailer on February 22, 1986 on TDF's new sixth terrestrial network, TV6, France's leading music television channel, began broadcasting on Saturday, March 1, 1986 at 2:00 PM.

Chirac asked his new Minister of Communication, François Léotard, to implement the government's audiovisual policy—the privatisation of TF1 and cancellation of the concessions of the two new private channels, La Cinq and TV6, which were too quickly awarded on pressure from the Élysée without a real call for tenders.

87-51 terminated the concession contract for the sixth channel, which was due to expire at midnight on February 28, 1987, and at the same time opened the call for applications for the reallocation of the network.

In an attempt to thwart the M6 proposal, which was favoured by the government (Chirac having already promised the sixth channel to his friend Jérôme Monod, CEO of Lyonnaise des Eaux, as well as to CLT against an agreement on the Luxembourg vote on the common agricultural policy), Publicis then negotiated with Lyonnaise des Eaux to make a new round table involving both new and old operators, as Silvio Berlusconi had done a few days earlier with Robert Hersant for La Cinq.

On February 28, 1987, with its one-year concession not renewed, TV6's headquarters were stormed by young fans who invaded the Champs-Élysées and improvised a demonstration with artists such as Francis Lalanne, Marc Lavoine, Mylène Farmer and Patrick Bruel.

The programme ended with a Star Wars parody clip in which Darth Vader (symbolizing the new right-wing government) congratulates himself on the victory of the Empire (the Lyonnaise des Eaux/CLT group) over the rebellion (TV6 owned by Publicis/NRJ), and shoots a floating TV6 television, causing it to explode.

TV6's share capital was FRF 10,000,000,000, 25% held by Publicis, 25% by Gaumont, 18% by NRJ, 12% by Gilbert Gross, and the remaining 20% being divided between management, private individuals and the 'three majors' of music publishing: Polygram, Sony and Virgin.