France

[FR] Audiovisual reform - the 40 proposals in the Bergé report

IRIS 2018-10:1/13

Amélie Blocman

Légipresse

On 4 October, French Member of Parliament Aurore Bergé submitted to the National Assembly forty proposals for “a new regulation on audiovisual communication in the digital era”. The proposals are the result of a fact-finding mission conducted since February by MPs on the Cultural Affairs Committee. The first major section of the report is devoted to combating piracy. It proposes that the competence to impose fines be given to the Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Œuvres et la Protection de la Création sur Internet (High Authority for the Broadcasting of Works and the Protection of rights on the Internet - HADOPI) in the context of the “graduated response” procedure. It also suggests combining the national audiovisual regulatory authority (Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel - CSA) and the HADOPI in order to “create a single authority regulating audiovisual content”. The second main section aims at ensuring financing for French works not only by “reaffirming the present financing model” (which the Committee considers “pertinent”) but also by “aligning the rate of taxation applicable to the incumbent players in the audiovisual sector with that applicable to the new digital services” such as Netflix, Amazon and Apple. A further aim is to “liberate the growth of the audiovisual stakeholders”. The report proposes “authorising segmented, geo-localised advertising on television as part of an eighteen-month experiment” and abolishing advertising on Radio France and France 5, as well as “extending the basis for taxation contributing to the audiovisual sector to all households”. These proposals are to be used as the basis for a bill that the Minister for Culture has announced will be tabled at the end of March 2019. The new Act would be divided into four sections. Aimed at: strengthening the public audiovisual sector (including the matter of governance); better financing and exposure of works (with the transposition of the European Union’s AMS Directive, which requires platforms to observe a broadcasting quota of 30% for European works), thereby ensuring diversity; extending the protection afforded to the public to encompass video platforms; and a relaxing and modernisation of the regulations.