France To Tax Mobile, Internet And TV Revenues To Fund Public Broadcaster
This story was written by Dianne See Morrison.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has made good on his promise to shake up the country's media industry. Starting on January 1 next year prime-time advertising on public television will be phased out, with the lost revenues to be replaced by taxes collected from internet, mobile phone and commercial broadcasting companies, Sarkozy announced today, reports Bloomberg.
Internet and mobile operators will have to stump up a tax of 0.9 percent of saleswhich could raise up to 380 million euros, in support of the state-owned France Televisions, which controls the country's four public channels. A further 80 million euros will come from taxes on commercial broadcasters.
The plans, first aired in January, and fine-tuned by a parliamentary commission appointed in February and led by Jean-Francois Cope, of the centre-right UMP party, are part of a wider plan that Sarkozy calls a "policy of civilization." The French president is said to admire the BBC, and the cultural and linguistic influence it asserts over the nation.
But France Televisions will have quite a shortfall to fill up, considering it brought in 834 million euros ($1.30 billion) from advertising and sponsorship in 2006, almost one-third of its total revenue, according to Reuters. By the Cope commission's own admission, France Televisions will have to find 650 million euros a year to make up for the lost ad revenue by 2013, as well as coming up with another 200 million euros to help support the country's TV content producers. Meanwhile, though commercial broadcasters will be taxed, it's expected they'll see a bump in ad revenues following the ban.
In an odd pairing, considering their own long-running spats, telecoms operators and EU bosses--none too pleased with the taxhave spoken out against it. The EU is afraid that the tax will stymie investment in the sector, while the operators see more of their hard-earned money being snatched away from them in what seems to them an almost arbitrary tax. The networks said they would continue lobbying parliament members, but have already promised to take the matter to the "European level" if the proposal passes.
Pic courtesy: Adam Tinworth
By Dianne See Morrison