04/11/2003

If, on the one hand there’s a big growth in DVDs, on the other hand television is registering a drop in audience, and film producers are concerned about the knock on effects, given that French television networks are large contributors to film funding. It’s obvious that the DVD sector creates an ever increasing imbalance for French cinema, as it doesn’t provide any financial support to the cinema industry. This is the probable evolution of the chronology of the media, or rather the legal rules of the spread of films, that will come about in the coming year.

The question of the chronology of the media has already been the subject of debate over the last few months, and the start of the pre-negotiation phase took place last week during a series of discussions published by the French newspaper "Le Figaro". The main culprits are seen to be internet piracy and the DVD phenomenon, given that films are now out on sale less than 6 months after their theatrical release, thus further reducing the potential audience when they are shown on television (9 months later for Canal+, 12 months for the other pay TV channels and 2 years for free terrestrial channels). The result of all this is that the television companies, who are amongst the major financers of French cinema, have started to ask for a reduction in the authorised time limit for broadcasting films on the small screen. This analysis is also shared by France Télévisions, Canal +, TPS e da M6.

On their part, cinema professionals like Alain Terzian (the president of the Union of Cinema Producers) and Michel Gomez (delegate-general of ARP) appear to be willing to accept an eventual change to the index, eve though ARP is insisting on the need to regulate the DVD sector and come up with constructive solutions to the piracy problem. For Alain Terzian, the idea would be to propose the waiting time for films to be broadcast on TV to be reduced to 2 months, or three months for films that have registered cinema audiences under 500,000, and an increase of the DVD contribution to the CNC support fund.
Obviously these suggestions haven’t gone down well with Jean-Paul Commin, the vice president of the National Trade Union for Video Publishers, who would like to substitute this timescale with a more contractual agreement between producers, cinema distributors and video publishers. Though this position is unlikely to have the agreement of film producers and the television networks, who now have to work on outlining the framework for an agreement to guarantee the financial stability of the system.

(Translated from French)