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This bill that wants to reorganize the French public audiovisual

Amaury de Rochegonde talks to us about the draft law on the audio-visual which will be presented at the latest beginning of November at the Council of Ministers, and which must arrive at the Parliament in January 2020. A project which will have important consequences for the public audio-visual French.

This is the "public audiovisual" aspect of the bill, 33 years after a founding law decided by Jacques Chirac in 1986. Franck Riester, Minister of the Cuture, confirmed Wednesday that France televisions, Radio France, the National Institute audiovisual and France media world - that is to say, RFI, France 24 and Monte Carlo Doualiya - were going to be united under the same holding, or as they say in French, under an umbrella company. His name will not surprise you, it will be France Media.

A president will be appointed by his board of directors, and not by the CSA as until now. He or she will supervise all the finances of the group and probably also a common digital offer while many services will be shared, for example the advertising network. Audiovisual companies will be headed by general managers, who are themselves appointed by their board of directors. To them will come the responsibility of the contents and the editorial line. In any case, this was stated by the minister, Franck Riester, for whom it is " those companies that will keep the editorial line, who will decide on programming ".

This is what differentiates this merger of a merger, ORTF way, the only company that broke out in 1974. However, according to Julia Cagé, professor of economics at Sciences Po, the concentration of budgets in a superstructure may have consequences on substructures. She fears that the money will be distributed according to a centralized arbitration that increases the savings and ultimately weakens the newsroom. Especially since this may be a first step before a merger on the model of the BBC, although, we know since the RFI-France 24, the radio and TV remain two quite different jobs.

This time again, the idea is to bring closer the media, France 3 and France in particular blue. But it is also to arm the audiovisual in the digital era while private channels will benefit from more revenue, with the green light given to the advertising of cinema or advertising segmented according to data profiles. It is also a question of replicating Internet platforms like Netflix or Amazon which divert more and more the attention of the televiewer. The law will also force these platforms as channels to invest in French audiovisual creation, for at least 16% of their turnover. Finally, the CSA will merge with Hadopi under the name of Arcom to better fight against piracy on the Internet. The law of men, in short, against the law of the jungle.

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