13/10/2008

Good news in the short term and uncertainties for the future emerged from Saturday’s debate "What place does film creation occupy in audiovisual reform?" organised by the ARP (Civil Society of Writers-Directors-Producers) as part of the Dijon Film Meetings.

While advertising will disappear from French public television after 8pm as of January 5, 2009 (and definitively as of 2011), Culture Minister Christine Albanel revealed that despite the merging into one company of the France Télévisions group, the pre-sales and co-production arms, France 2 Cinéma and France 3 Cinéma, will continue to operate independently. In 2007, the former invested €32.11m in French film for 28 features and the latter €20.91m for 23 films.

In the context of the decline of film broadcasting on TV networks, Patrice Duhamel (director general of France Télévisions’ channels) underlined the problem of the costs of cinematic works for TV companies compared to the new TNT channels. Moreover, although the financing of the advertising ban (a tax of 0.9% on the turnover of telecom and Internet operators, and taxation on the advertising revenues of private television networks) has been guaranteed by the Culture Minister, it has not yet been laid down by the law.

The speed of the reform’s implementation has already had an impact on the turnover of France Télévisions (who are obliged to invest in French and European film). Meanwhile, the €150m in capital granted as compensation to France Télévisions seems difficult (despite goodwill) to equate with turnover. This is an initial problem to be settled before, in 2009, getting to the heart of the reform whose long-term consequences remain hard to predict.

(Translated from French)