On Saturday July 23rd MP's voted to abolish France's television licence, a tax that funds public broadcasting and which has existed since 1948. It currently raises 3.2 billion euros a year. The scrapping of the licence fee was a surprise and little-debated campaign promise made by Emmanuel Macron in this year's presidential election. The president says the decision was taken to help reduce the 'cost of living' burden on French households. But as Mediapart's Dan Israel argues here in this opinion article, the move poses a serious threat to France's public broadcasters who will now have to rely on a government grant from VAT receipts rather than their own dedicated tax. A number of senior figures in public broadcasting have warned about the potential threat this could cause to the independence and quality of editorial content.
The public broadcaster television channel France Ô was created to showcase the programmes and culture of France's overseas territories to Metropolitan France and provide a link between the country's mainland and its far-flung lands. But now the government in Paris has decided to axe the channel, which has been getting very low viewing figures. It will broadcast for the last time on August 23rd. Ministers insist that the channel will be replaced by a new online portal and that programmes about the overseas territories, from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, will be shown in greater numbers on existing public broadcast channels. But as Julien Sartre reports, many fear that France's overseas territories may simply become “invisible” once more.
French television star and producer Nagui was given a 100-million-euro three-year contract with public broadcaster France Télévisions, which is largely funded by a television licence paid by the general public, Mediapart can reveal. The revelation falls at a time when the public broadcaster has been forced to cut budgets and offer voluntary redundancies to save money, and will refuel debates about how much of the organisation's money should be spent on trying to keep its high-profile stars. The news that France Télévisions president Delphine Ernottee personally took charge of the negotiations also comes just days before a decision is due on whether she will reappointed when her own contract comes to an end. Michaël Hajdenberg and Antton Rouget report.
France's state-owned public service network France Télévisions is joining forces with main private network TF1 and also M6, the country’s most profitable private channel, to launch a subscription service next year called Salto, offering a back catalogue of French TV shows and original content in response to the growing success of US video entertainment giant Netflix, which has attracted 3.5 million subscribers in France.
A row has broken out after President Emmanuel Macron reportedly described French public broadcasting as a “disgrace to the Republic”. His office has denied the exact phrasing but there is little doubt that the president is not happy with the quality of programmes or the way that the country's public broadcasting sector is run. It is equally clear, reports Loup Espargilière, that President Macron is planning major reforms in this area.
