Ithere is still time. So you have to shout it very loudly. Removing the audiovisual license fee would be a bad action.
The principle dates back to the mid-1930s. Georges Mandel, minister responsible for radio, theorized it. His rationale remains unchanged. It is a question, today as in the past, of ensuring the sustainability, alongside organizations driven by the quest for profit and whose dynamism is primarily commercial, of a public service which is driven by other springs. In the absence of the royalty, any risk, for sure, to be pulled down. Buying the first chain in 1987, a public works contractor had promised to serve “a cultural best-seller”. We know what happened.
The demagogic idea of taxpayer satisfaction is obviously illusory. It will be fleeting, for sure. Demagogy! I was in charge of audiovisual matters in the government when I learned, in the fall of 1992, that a young finance inspector had put into the mind of the Prime Minister, Pierre Bérégovoy, a singular conviction: to abolish the royalty, supposed unpopular (despite various exemptions) would have a decisive effect in rallying public opinion to the power in place, in view of the forthcoming legislative elections. It was a calembredaine. But I had to threaten to resign for the project to be withdrawn. We are entitled to affirm, without risk of being contradicted, that it is not for this reason that the left was beaten during the legislative elections that followed.
Encourage the development of advertising
The government promises us a multi-year guarantee of public sector funding. Pure illusion, since it can be contradicted each year by new decisions. In the absence of a license fee, the public broadcasting budget is destined to become an adjustment variable for any ministry.
On the other hand, inevitably, leaders who always find that they are not treated up to their merits will be inclined to weigh, more or less directly, on the content of the information including freedom (synonymous, in occurrence, of responsibility) was obtained with great difficulty from the Mitterrand years, and now constitutes a democratic achievement that is priceless. As so often happened in the past, the temptation will be great, irresistible, for the public authorities, whatever they may be – in fixing the global sum as in the distribution between the organizations, thanks to the financial weapon – to favor , as of old, the most servile. Awful throwback.
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