François Hollande is very likely to win the French presidential election on May 6. Although the politics of the media has not been a popular topic during the campaign, it seems very likely that the new president will have to face very soon, some akward matters concerning the vast field of Communication.
First and foremost, he will have to handle the dossier of Presstalis, the ailing organization in charge of the delivery of national newspapers and magazines. Presstalis is on the brink of bankrupcy and according to la Tribune.fr, will need 160 millions euros to survive but for how long? Nobody has any idea about the recipe for survival for an obsolescent system dominated by the Unions.
Then it will be necessary to fix the legislation of Internet and find a middle way between the safety of the industry of creation (music, video, book publishing) and the demands of complete freedom issued noisily by many Internauts. The new bill, the new Hadopi is not written yet.
The government will also have to reorganize the costly system of press subsidies. It is obvious that public money will be ever more scarce these coming years and the many magazines will have to give up their cosy subsidies that should be totally devoted to opinion newspapers and weeklies. A tough choice for the politicians.
Last but not least, the new organization of public television. Its audience is going down as more and more TNT channels are in competition with the old broadcasters. The audiovisual authority, the CSA is powerless towards the increasing development of video on the Web. Can it regulate international giants such as Apple and Google?
Of course the media are not a priority for the new president but they are the stuff of the life of the citizens and time is running short.
