Sarkozy plans to scrap advertising on French public television

by Staff, Brand Republic 09-Jan-08, 11:05

PARIS - French public television will have all advertising removed and commercial television networks could see their ad revenue taxed, according to plans unveiled by President Nicolas Sarkozy this week.

Sarkozy said part of the plan will be a "total suppression of advertising on public broadcasters". In return, French public broadcasters will have a duty to create quality programming.

The president also plans to create an umbrella broadcasting organisation, covering the channels TV5Monde and France24 and the radio station Radio France Internationale, into a body similar to the UK's BBC World Service.

Sarkozy, or "Sarko" as he has been dubbed, is presently making more headlines for his love affair with former model Carla Bruni than for his policy statements. He said he would replace news channel France24, which broadcasts in French, English and Arabic, with a French-language service called France Monde.

Sarkozy said: "With taxpayers' money I am not prepared to run a channel that does not speak French."

Shares in privately-owned broadcasters TF1 and M6 were significantly boosted by the announcement, seeing as they will now have a much bigger slice of the advertising cake.

According to the Financial Times, Sarkozy's cultural adviser, Georges-Marc Benhamou, visited London last year to examine the UK broadcast market and saw the BBC as a promising example for publicly-funded television in France.