France: Funding Public Service Media in the Digital Age

Abstract

With four organizationally separate entities, Radio France, France Télévisions, France Médias Monde and the Institut national de l’audiovisuel, the public service media in France are fragmented. In recent years there has been a regrouping of the public television companies within the single framework of France Télévisions. However, there has been no concerted attempt to reintegrate public radio and television (and their associated online services) into some kind of French-style BBC, even if the establishment of the rolling news channel Franceinfo, officially launched in September 2016, includes all four components of public service media. The chapter reviews the domestic funding of public service media. It also elaborates on recent debates about transparency which, however, rarely move beyond the purview of certain established elite stakeholders including the government, some parliamentarians, the regulatory authority, and private and public media owners and management. The public is rarely consulted in any formal way as an integral part of policy reform and has no representation on the governing bodies of public service media organizations.