Paris (AFP)
The Council of State advocates the return of advertising after 20 hours on the channels of France Televisions during the broadcast of sports events, to allow the public group to "finance the purchase of rights of retransmission" competitions, in a study revealed Sunday by Le Parisien.
This return of advertising screens would be "strictly circumscribed" to sports events and would not "call into question" the suppression of advertising on France Télévisions channels, which came into force in 2009 at the instigation of Nicolas Sarkozy, says the Council of 'State.
In an annual study, "Sport: which public policy?", Published last week, the institution considers it "desirable to authorize, by way of derogation, advertising on public channels after 8 pm during the broadcast of sports events. , to finance the purchase of rights of retransmissions of sports competitions ".
France Télévisions, underlines the Council of State, "faces a scissors effect caused by the decline in public resources (decrease of expenditure of 160 million euros by 2002)" on the one hand, and "by the inflation of rights of retransmission of sports events "on the other hand.
"The increase of the rights of retransmission could eventually put them out of reach of the public service", warns the Council of State, underlining a "constant decline" of the budget that France Télévisions devotes to the sport for four years (of 230 million d in 2016 to 192 million euros in 2019).
If "heritage" events such as Roland Garros or the Tour de France, broadcast before 8 pm, allow it to benefit from advertising revenue, "the sustainability of the identification of the public service at certain international events organized in France is not, however, assured, "he says.
He quotes the call for tenders launched by the French Tennis Federation for "the rights of retransmission of the tournament of Roland Garros from 2021 to 2023, during which some games will take place at night, on the central court equipped with lighting, and new players with very important capabilities might be interested. "
© 2019 AFP