Published:
08-Jan-08
France's President Nicolas Sarkozy called for a "revolution" in the financing of public television, with the replacement of advertising by a tax on private TV advertising and new media platforms. Speaking at a press conference, Sarkozy said that public broadcasting could not fulfil its mission "to offer the largest possible number of people access to culture" by functioning on "purely commercial criteria". France Televisions, the main public organisation, is at present financed by a mixture of licence fee and advertising revenue, which contributed €834m to its coffers in 2006. The broadcaster had already called for a statement on its future financing from the new government and its chief Patrick de Carolis welcomed the "clarification" from its "main shareholder". Ad revenue could, proposed Sarkozy, be replaced by a tax on the advertising revenues of private channels and an "infinitesimal" tax on mobile telephony and broadband internet access. The ministry of culture started consultations on reform of the country's media regulations last year, including relations between producers and broadcasters, public broadcasting, and cross-media ownership laws.
Our take...
The Sarkozy "revolution" comes at a delicate time for the public broadcaster France Televisions, which is absorbing the cost of the transition to digital and has already had to contend with a TV licence fee which has stayed around the same level since 2002 and a reduction in advertising airtime. Share prices of private broadcasters TF1 and M6 were boosted by the news, the market deciding they stand to gain more than they will lose from the proposed change. While the redistributive tax suggested by the president is an unusual method of funding public broadcasting, this is similar to the way France funds its national film body the Centre national du Cinema.
France,
