At a time when there is no longer any question of ” watch television “, but to access audiovisual services on connected televisions, facilitating the approach of viewers to their familiar programs has become a major issue alongside which the Audiovisual Communication Regulatory Authority (Arcom) could not, legally and logically, not pass. Arcom therefore published, Thursday February 8, two draft deliberations intended to transpose the 2018 European directive on “audiovisual media services” (SMA) into the French law of 1986 on freedom of communication.
Purpose of the operation: to ensure that the French channels selected do not end up swallowed up in the ocean of paid offers available to viewers when they grab the remote control, but on the contrary benefit from ‘ease of access equivalent to that of their foreign competitors, such as Netflix or Amazon Prime who are increasingly entitled to a visible logo and direct access from the zapette object.
Obliging manufacturers to install a specific button on the remote control being out of range, Arcom recommends grouping the offer of the channels concerned in a common environment. Or an application – a dematerialized button – which will house the mosaic of the services concerned. Namely: public broadcasting channels as well as TV5 Monde, but also private television channels holding an authorization to broadcast on DTT (TF1, M6, Canal+, etc.), as well as media services at associated demand (TF1+, France.tv, MyCanal, Arte.tv, etc.), considered as “services of general interest” – those whom Article 7a of the European Parliament directive designates as having to access a “appropriate visibility”. This application, designed jointly by the publishers, will allow access to the programs of each of them in two clicks, as is the case for American platforms.
“Defense of pluralism”
“Two principles guided the collegeunderlines Roch-Olivier Maistre, the president of Arcom. The interest of the public, by offering the simplest, most fluid, intuitive and ergonomic solution for them; and the defense of pluralism, by allowing our national publishers to be exposed to the best conditions on these interfaces. » The magistrate also sees issues of ” cultural diversity “ and of “national sovereignty”.
Once informed of these deliberations, the European Commission will have three months to provide comments. This is when the channels will have to “sit around a table to deliberate” and agree on the best way to deploy on the user interfaces appearing in the updateable list published in March 2023 (televisions, connected speakers, game consoles, service distributors such as Canal+, application stores, etc.). Those which have already conducted over-the-counter commercial negotiations with a view to obtaining better visibility, as TF1 has just done with several Internet service providers and television brands, will be able to keep it. No deadline for reaching an agreement has been set for them: “It is clearly in their interest to quickly access the best possible exposure”wants to believe Roch-Olivier Maistre.
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