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Report on the future of public media

Article published on the 2008-06-25 Latest update 2008-06-25 12:13 TU

Jean-François Copé, head of the parliamentary commission on public media.(Photo : AFP)

Jean-François Copé, head of the parliamentary commission on public media.
(Photo : AFP)

The future of France’s public television and radio will be made public later today when President Nicolas Sarkozy receives a parliamentary commission report. He is expected to present the findings and announce his intentions at a press conference this afternoon.

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Sarkozy announced a plan to eliminate advertising on public television and radio in January. Details on how pubic media is to be otherwise funded have not been forthcoming. Public television and radio employees have already gone on strike once, protesting the initial plan.

This plan would remove all advertising from public TV by 2012, with the first stage of stopping ads after 8pm going into effect in September 2009.

To make up for lost revenue, the report suggests a 0.5 per cent tax on internet providers and cellular telephone companies. These measures are expected to bring in 210 million euros, which falls short of the commission’s estimate of 650 million euros in lost advertising revenue.

Unions contest these numbers, saying that 800 million euros will be lost directly, and that the reform will cost a total of 1.2 billion euros.

The report also suggests pegging the television license tax to inflation in order to increase revenue directly from viewers. In addition, it suggests cutting Radio France Internationale’s portion of this tax, which sits at some 60 million euros, to provide more money for television.

For RFI, this would represent to a loss of 40 per cent of its budget. Currently RFI's 130 million euro budget is financed by the license fee and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

There is speculation in the French media that President Sarkozy may pursue a more aggressive agenda than the report suggests, eliminating all advertising by 1 January 2009, and raising the internet and telephone tax as high as one per cent.