Born from the merger of the Superior Audiovisual Council (CSA) and the High Authority for the Distribution of Works and the Protection of Rights on the Internet (Hadopi), the new regulator officially entered into service on 1er January 2022.
ARCOM, the Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority, will become, in the coming hours, an active legal entity. Refusing to be a simple millefeuille of skills drawn from the side of CSA and the side of Hadopi, she wants to embody an authority of a new kind and describes herself as ” the support and the driving force of a new public policy by modernizing the exercise of regulation “. ARCOM will benefit from extended competences and will ensure independent audiovisual and digital regulation. Let’s see how this super authority is taking shape, which already has 355 employees.
How is ARCOM made up, and who will lead it?
The new independent public authority is headed by a college of nine members, just like the CSA. The president of ARCOM, Roch-Olivier Maistre, is appointed by the Head of State and he is surrounded by eight other members: three are appointed by the President of the Senate, three by the President of the National Assembly, one is appointed by the vice-president of the Council of State, and a final one appointed by the first president of the Court of Cassation. Together, they form the college of ARCOM, which is supposed to meet at least every Wednesday to rule on cases for which a decision from the authority is expected. One of the first hot issues on the ARCOM table will be that of the merger between TF1 and M6, which some players, like Free, do not want.
Under this college, there are several departments under the responsibility of the Director General and his assistants, and 16 territorial audiovisual committees, located in Metropolitan France and overseas. ARCOM is divided into several departments, each working in one or more areas: communication; the legal; administration and finance of information systems; creation ; audiences, pluralism and social cohesion; television and video on demand; radio and digital audio; online platforms; studies, economics and foresight; and finally European and international affairs.
These different ARCOM departments, made up of 355 agents and with a budget of 46.6 million euros, give us a first overall idea of the particularly broad scope of action of the new regulator, ranging from the protection of copyright to the fight against piracy, through the fight against disinformation and hate content, and the regulation of SVoD platforms.
What are ARCOM’s “historic” missions?
ARCOM’s skills base is quite strong. If one were to sum up half of them in one sentence, one could say that the authority ensures ” allow access to a pluralistic audiovisual offer, respectful of rights and freedoms As she says herself. This includes, in particular, ensuring political pluralism in radio and television programs, as well as program ethics. It should also help promote representation of French society and protect young people, for example by improving the relevance of signage.
The technological reception of programs is also one of these skills. It includes support for the deployment of DAB + (digital terrestrial radio) and the modernization of DTT, for which improvements in sound and image quality are expected, in addition to interactivity features.
And what are its new digital missions?
Part of the spirit of Hadopi, one of ARCOM’s central missions will be to promote legal cultural content offers. 49% of Internet users subscribe to a video-on-demand subscription service, a figure that has gained 27 points in three years. The interest of the authority is to better promote legal offers to promote their adoption, which would then keep users away from pirated content.
Illicit services (12.4 million Internet users use them each month in France), which represent a shortfall of more than one billion euros per year for the French audiovisual sector, will be in ARCOM’s sights. . Thinking in particular of the pirating of sports broadcasts, the regulator is working to deploy a new mechanism against these illegal broadcasting services. It will also try to bring together the rights holders and the actors likely to block pirate services, so as to gain time in the repression.
Among the other major missions of ARCOM, the authority will be responsible for everything relating to the financing and audiovisual and cinematographic promotion, as well as the participation of the major streaming platforms (Netflix, Disney +, Amazon Prome Vidéo and others) to the financing system for French creation. This will be closely monitored, with expected contributions of 250 to 300 million euros per year.
Protecting users from hateful content: a top priority for ARCOM
The Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority wants to participate in the development of a safer Internet. ” ARCOM is not intended to regulate the Internet “, Warns the authority, but” its mission is to ensure that the measures provided for by the legislator are implemented and respected by content platforms and social networks », She explains. The regulator will be able to issue guidelines addressed directly to operators of platforms and social networks, in particular in the fight against online hatred and the manipulation of information. Its power of sanction is not negligible either. ARCOM may sanction companies that do not comply with the regulations with a fine of up to 20 million euros or 6% of worldwide turnover.
With regard to media and information education, ARCOM wants to protect young audiences, in particular by offering parents and educational and institutional partners, educational kits. The fight against minors’ access to pornography (a subject that is causing a stir these days, especially with regard to pornographic sites and the age limit) and the regulation of the commercial exploitation of the image of children on online platforms are also missions to which the authority will pay particular attention.
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Source: ARCOM
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