Nonce Paolini, the chairman and MD of TF1, has criticised the ‘crazy’ taxation of private broadcasters when they are supporting creativity and has slated what he called an “economic imbalance” with the internet, reports the French news agency AFP.
“We are taxed excessively, whereas other media aren’t at all. There is an economic imbalance,” said Paolini during an NPA (New Broadcasting Scene) Council colloquium on digital TV. “We pay taxes for the press, community radio and even for France Televisions [the public broadcaster]. We are in the land of the crazy people, the only country to invent a system like that,” he continued.
“Very strict” regulation and government “fluctuations” over the scrapping of advertising on France Televisions before 8pm “penalise us in terms of international investors”, he added.
“If the law does away with advertising on France Televisions before eight in the evening, one of the priorities is to give stations the means to develop by modifying this ridiculous system of taxation and giving them the means in terms of concentration,” he continued.
He recalled TF1’s “fight” to buy the terrestrial digital television stations NT1 and TMC, which “still do not yet belong to us” because of an appeal to the Council of State.
