A lot of polemique in France at the moment, as usual stirred up by Monsieur le Président. A couple of months ago a government commission recommended the withdrawal of advertising from the state television channels. Up until now they've been funded in much the same way as private channels. The recommendation created enough furore on its own, but yesterday Sarkozy announced that he was accepting the commission's report and further that it would be him who would have the sole responsibility of appointing the head of France Television, instead of an independent body.
Cries of foul, from every opposition politician, union leader and most of the independent media, comparing him to the Berlusconi monopoly and control of the Italian media, and raising the spectre of state propoganda and censorship. The government claims scrapping advertising will lead to a more innovative state television slanted towards public service, but the more cynical view is that it will only increase advertising revenues for the private TV channels, notably TF1, France Television's main rival, owned & run by a close chum of Sarko's. There was a related row earlier this month when Patrick Poivre D'Arvor, the doyen of newsreaders, was effectively sacked from TF1's evening news, which he's presented for the last 20 years. PPDA (the French love their acronyms) allegedly upset Sarko during an interview when he compared the president to a little boy. Fatal error...
