Bankrolling public broadcast services is not the job of telecoms operators, says Giles Cottle

摘要

Last month, the political party of President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed to ban advertising on public TV in France. To offset this cost, France's commercial broadcasters would pay a percentage of their advertising revenues - likely to be 3% - while mobile and fixed operators would be taxed at 0.9% of their total revenue. The UMP party argues that the tax will preserve France's public broadcasting sector. It is part of a wider "policy of civilisation" aimed at improving the country's social well-being. Similar plans have been mooted in Britain. The UK communications regulator, Ofcom, launched a review last September proposing that an Internet tax could help fund and preserve Britain's public-service-broadcasting sector.