The TV Tax, Public Television

The first time we received the bill for our TV tax, “Redevance Audiovisuelle”, I thought it was a joke or some kind of fraud. A brightly colored two-page form asking for Euro 116 because we own a TV? We called a friend who assured us that, yes, we have to pay this tax every year. We bought our TV at Darty. I bet they turned us in.

So, we paid the bill, not really knowing what it was for, thinking it is just another way for the French government to tax us.

Later on we learned that this tax allows the French state-owned TV channels to try to strike a better balance between culture and commerce. In other words, fewer commercials and perhaps programming that is more esoteric so that it doesn’t have to compete for ad dollars with more popular shows.

Of course, even though this seems complex, this is just the start of the issue.



Now, it seems that Sarkozy is proposing to ban all advertising on public channels by 2011. The plan will start to be realized in January with a ban on advertising after 8 PM.

If this proposal is approved by parliament, our TV tax will increase.

But the competing private broadcasters, and telecom/internet operators such as France Telecom would pay for the majority of this plan. So, if this happens, the private channels will be forced to subsidize their competitors.

And, don't forget that this is France. Employees from the public radio and television stations have already gone on strike to protest this change. The daily newspaper “Liberation” ran a front-page headline, “France Sarkovision”. It is widely thought that Sarkozy’s plan is really a propagandist strategy aimed at controlling the media. But, the culture minister, Christine Albanel says that these claims are absurd and that there are parliamentary checks in place.

It all boils down to "what's in it for me?" Maybe there will be more opera on TV. But, our taxes will go up. And I'm sure that the increased taxes paid by companies like France Telecom will be passed along to us too. So, we all end up paying for this, one way or another.

In the US, where we have no television tax and plenty of commercials, we also have recording devices that we can use to "zap" all the commercials. The advertising sponsors can pay for the programs, but I don't have to watch all those ads. We have been recording Wimbledon on our DVR. We probably fast-forward through four hours of commercials in a 10 hour broadcast. It does get a little annoying, but I'm not sure that Sarkozy has found the solution.