Excerpt from report by French news agency AFP
Paris, 5 September 2007: Reform of public external broadcasting will not come in the form of an “all-encompassing merger” between the different bodies concerned (France 24, TV5, RFI [Radio France Internationale]), said Georges-Marc Benamou, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s adviser on culture and broadcasting, in an interview with AFP today, Wednesday.
At present, “public external broadcasting has all the look of an incredible Meccano set - but we are not going to carry out an all-encompassing merger”, said Mr Benamou, who along with Mr Sarkozy’s diplomatic adviser, Jean-David Levitte, chairs “a working group and think-tank involved in making proposals” concerning this delicate question.
The group, made up of representatives from the prime minister’s office and the various ministries concerned (Foreign Ministry, Culture and Finance) has already met several times. It is agreed on the “need to reform” public external broadcasting, whose “influence remains insufficient” in view of the sum (more than 300m euros, excluding Arte [Franco-German TV channel]) France dedicates to it every year. An “interim report” listing different options was written in August.
“The working group will now launch a consultation exercise”, Mr Benamou said. “We are going to enter into a process of listening to the different entities concerned and the francophone authorities,” said the left-wing journalist and writer, who has been won over by Nicolas Sarkozy. In fact France must consult its partners in TV5, a francophone television channel which is funded essentially by Paris but also by Switzerland, Canada, Quebec and Belgium.
[Passage omitted - Mr Benamou said TF5 would remain “a generalist, multilateral and francophone channel, but it will be modernized”. He added that it was not a question of making savings but of ensuring France’s influence. According to Mr Benamou, the working group’s proposals will be presented to the president and the prime minister at the beginning of November, for arbitration by the president.]
“The paradox is that we have good funding but that there is a lack of effectiveness. With BBC World, the British spend about the same amount as we do but they have a dominant position,” he pointed out.
Some members of the working group will go to London at the end of the week to meet BBC World directors and to study the secrets of the success of this media outlet.
(Source: AFP news agency, Paris, in French 1116 gmt 5 Sep 07 via BBC Monitoring/R Netherlands Media Network Weblog)