France

[FR] A Month in the Life of the Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel

IRIS 1999-4:1/30

Bertrand Delcros

Radio France

The Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA - official audiovisual monitoring body) recently celebrated its tenth anniversary; a number of other countries have modelled their own systems of audiovisual regulation on the CSA. Taking a look at all the activities at the CSA in the course of a month gives a good idea of what regulation is all about.

Radio is a very important field. In February 1999, the CSA adopted more than 40 decisions on this sector, ranging from calling for applicants and issuing and renewing authorizations for broadcasting frequencies to appointing members of the radiophonic technical committees, which are regional bodies under the CSA's authority. This intense activity is due to the existence of more than fifteen hundred private radio stations in France.

The CSA's regulatory activity is considerable in the field of television as well. Thus the CSA called for applicants in Bordeaux and in the départements of Savoie and Haute-Savoie. Broadcasting frequencies were allocated to Arte and La Cinquième, to France 3 and to RFO in Mayotte; a television service authorisation was issued in the French West Indies, and another was renewed in Lyon. The channel M6 was authorised to operate separate regional programmes at certain times. The CSA also decided that the peak times (during which the quotas for broadcasting cinematographic and audiovisual works of European origin or made in French must be respected) of the television channels Eclair TV and Canal 10 correspond to their entire broadcasting time.

Regional elections were held in Corsica in February. In accordance with the amended act of 30 September 1986, the CSA sent recommendations to public- and private-sector radio and television stations to remind them of the rules of objectivity to be observed during the election campaign.

Lastly, the CSA also has the power to appoint members of the management boards of the national programming companies. It has appointed one member of the management board of Radio France.