Sarkozy ends advertising on French public service TV

by Staff, Brand Republic 26-Jun-08, 09:20

PARIS - President Nicolas Sarkozy is under fire as he confirmed plans to end advertising on French public service television from January and replace it with a tax, which will be levied on telecoms firms and commercial broadcasters.

The French president first announced his plans in January as part of a plan to improve the quality of public service programming and create an umbrella broadcasting organisation covering channels TV5Monde and France24 and the radio station Radio France Internationale, similar to BBC World Service.

Sarkozy's plans are based on the proposals of a commission headed by Jean-Francois Cope, leader of the parliamentary group of the centre-right UMP party. The commission described the current state of French public service broadcasting as a "house of cards".

Sarkozy said: "France needs a balance between public channels and private channels. We have to allow the private channels to develop and at the same time we have to give France Televisions the means of offering quality programmes to as many viewers as possible," .

His plan faces strong opposition from a number of sides including industry association FFT. Yves Le Mouel, director general of FFT, said they would be trying to convince parliamentarians as long as the law isn't voted on. After that, he said the body would appeal at the European level.

While the commercial broadcasters, including M6-Metropole Television and Societe Television Francaise 1, are unhappy with the tax they should benefit from increased ad spending as a result of the change.

The changes will begin on January 1 2009 and ads will be phased out over a period concluding by December 1 2011.

The tax will be paid by internet, mobile-phone and commercial-broadcasters, which will pay a tax of 0.9% of sales to finance ad-free public television. Sarkozy said this would raise up to €380m, but it is a long way short of what public service broadcasters need.

In all, the state-owned France Televisions will need to make up €834m that it earned from advertising and sponsorship in 2006, which represents a third of its total revenues.

As well as the EU, private companies and trade unions representing workers in public sector media have also hit out. They were on strike last week over concerns that the plan could put jobs at risk and take away the independence of the broadcasters.

Culture minister Christine Albanel yesterday denied that the move threatened broadcaster independence.

"There is no risk of control," she told France 2 television. "There is a strong logic in the state, the 100% shareholder, appointing the director while being reviewed by parliament and the CSA."

Sarkozy also said that 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."