Lawmakers Set Media Support Priorities, Focus On New Normal

Michael Hedges September 7, 2020 - Follow on Twitter

Media operators of all shapes and sizes have been wracked by financial consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. In quick review: the coronavirus outbreak last January spread quickly throughout the world over a few weeks bringing illness taxing public health services leading to necessary restrictions on daily life, including economic. People everywhere, often locked in the homes, devoured information sources to assess personal consequences.

At the same time, the primary revenue source for these media sources - advertising - evaporated as retail business and entertainment became financially unsustainable. In many places, certain restrictions have been lifted, slightly. Summer holidays were reduced to Zoom tours. The traditional back-to-school shopping blitz never materialized. Instead, people learned to cook. Media outlets have been left banging pots and pans to drum up subscribers, at least among those people still employed. Dystopia.

Governments, rather unevenly, have leveraged their borrowing power to ease the economic distress on businesses and the public. Some have begun to recognize that the pandemic may run for several more months if not years. They talk of a new normal. It doesn’t look like fun. Different plans have been offered, even to publishers and broadcasters, to wait out the disruption and avoid wholesale economic and social restructuring. Office parties have been postponed indefinitely.

The French government recently announced a €100 billion stimulus package (September 3). Most of it is “supply side,” meaning no gift to consumers or retailers through a value added tax (VAT) cut. There’s money for high-tech start-up investment, lest the rich US tech giants scoop them up.

The media sector has not been entirely left out. Support for publishers, already €840 million annually to offset digital turmoil, was recently augmented by another €483 million to be applied over the next two years. Some of this comes as tax breaks, unemployment support and postal rebates. There is money for publishers, large and small, as well as kiosk operators. The government ask publishers to “reduce the precariousness” of freelancers, photojournalists and cartoonists.

French publishers are wary. “To a structural crisis has been grafted a cyclical crisis,” suggested publisher association Press Alliance president Jean-Michel Baylet, quoted by Le Figaro (August 28). “Publishers’ circulation turnover fell during the lockdown to 25%, and advertising revenues fell by 30% and up to 80%, putting many players at risk. At the same time, the press has shown its mobilization and its capacity for action to inform our fellow citizens in the midst of a storm.”

The audiovisual sector has not been forgotten in the largess. Being France, support funding - about €2 billion - is wrapped up in culture. “The challenge of the recovery plan in the Culture Ministry is both to rebuild the cultural sectors and to overhaul cultural policies, in order to be able to support the resumption of activity and to project oneself into the future,” said the Culture Ministry statement (September 3). Under financial pressure for years, more so since the arrival of Netflix, French cinema is getting attention.

Public broadcasting - France Télévisions, Radio France, France Medias Monde - is receiving an “exceptional public grant” of €70 million to “cushion the effects of the crisis,” noted Les Echos (September 3). Aside from previously awarded funds from the household license fee, private sector broadcasters have been left to their own devices. The French parliament has shelved action on harmonizing French law with the European Union Audiovisual Media Services Directive, due by the end of 2020, to give its full attention to coronavirus and economic legislation.

See also...

• Hot Topics - Media in France

• Hot Topics - Media Support