I am proud and pleased to welcome you today to the trade fairs of the
Ministry of Culture and Communication on the occasion of the signing
France Télévisions' 2011-2015 objectives and means contract. The
time is of importance since it is for the State and the company to stop
a common roadmap for the next five years.
The contract of objectives and means, or COM, is the founding act of the
governance of national program societies. It formalizes the
meeting of a public policy and a corporate strategy, it sets to
through a series of quantitative and qualitative objectives the framework for
company and provides multi-year visibility for management and financing,
for the benefit of both France Télévisions and the State.
It was natural that the arrival of Mr. Rémy Pflimlin as President of France
Televisions, 22 August 2010, leads the State and society to develop a
new COM covering the period 2011-2015. Consequently, the company,
as well as the three signatory ministries of the COM:
and communication; the Ministry of Economy, Finance and
the industry of François Baroin; the Ministry of Budget, Public Accounts
and the reform of the State of Valérie Pécresse, but also the
of the French Overseas Territories, negotiated for several months before
draft text. I would like to thank the various
jurisdictions that participated in these discussions. I also want to
salute France Télévisions, in the person of its president, Mr. Rémy
Pflimlin, for the quality of the exchanges which enabled this COM and
that the company has conducted in total transparency, with a constant concern for
concertation.
At the end of this negotiation phase, a draft text was forwarded
for advice to parliamentary committees on culture and
and communicated to the Superior Council of Audiovisual. After
have received a favourable opinion from the relevant
the National Assembly, the final version of the text was adopted by the
Board of Directors of France Télévisions on October 19, signed
by the Minister of Finance Economics and Industry, as well as by the
Minister of Budget, Public Accounts and Government Reform. He
therefore, dear Rémy Pflimlin, it is now up to you to complete this
collective work.
Before I do so, I would like to briefly review the main points of this
Contract 2011-2015, which enshrines an ambitious and responsible strategy.
The COM shows the will of France Télévisions, supported by the State, to
address all audiences. It is essential to offer all
citizens of all ages, backgrounds, origins and
a rich and varied range of public service programs. The
of the legitimacy of public television, more than ever essential in
a burgeoning media landscape.
However, as in other European countries, public television
that, having maintained a high level of audience,
average, older and less popular than other
TV, now more numerous. Regain all the
maintaining the specificity of its programs, this is the challenge
of France Télévisions.
To do this, France Télévisions has the ambition to strengthen its presence
in the world of digital terrestrial television, affirming the
the identities of its antennas, benefiting from the complementarity of
France Télévisions, and by investing
in the original creation, the only one able to exist and
to bring together in a world where the offer of programs has multiplied.
It also intends to build on the special relationship that unites it to
through its regional dimension, both in metropolitan and overseas,
to impose its specificity, to do public service, to create
link between our fellow citizens.
To reach all audiences, France Télévisions must also strengthen
its presence in the digital world, where the predominance of the video format
will likely be accompanied by a decrease in television use
in favour of on-demand consumption. As such, the
TV channels must remain prescribers and
creative spaces. France Télévisions will rely on its domains
excellence to assert itself in this universe: information, sport,
the regional anchor, the original creation.
We had the opportunity a few days ago to measure ourselves
the considerable progress made by the company in this area,
with the launch of the France TV Info platform, also called «Pi»,
which offers truly innovative services in terms of on-line monitoring
information flows, and interactivity with the French editors
Televisions. As a result, all the group’s content will be
better shared, disseminated, available on networks
digital.
This COM thus marks the will of the public group, but also its
exemplarity.
Exemplarity when it comes to support for audiovisual creation, because the challenge
is twofold: to offer the public modern, creative works capable of
to renew French fiction and bring the public together, but also
develop a true partnership with producers and creators.
As you know, in addition to the provisions of the specifications which
requires the company to spend a certain percentage of its figure
business at the time of creation, the COM guarantees in absolute value an amount
minimum annual investment of €420 million from 2012
for audiovisual creation and €60 million for cinema.
In addition to this commitment, which makes France Télévisions the first
French contributor to audiovisual creation, the company is committed to
direction of the renewal of the formats and the writings: testifies to this
last June, a charter for the development of the
fiction, with representative organizations of producers and
audiovisual authors, and thus puts into practice one of the recommendations
Pierre Chevalier’s excellent report on development
fiction, last April. In the field of cinema, France
Télévisions will continue its diversity policy.
Exemplary also because France Télévisions must be ambitious in
exhibition of cultural programs, including musical programs, as in
display a wide variety of sports, while ensuring coverage
the great events that united our fellow citizens.
These commitments by the State and France Télévisions reflect a
deep conviction that I wish to share with you: the power of
audiovisual media remains strong, and it retains an important
prescription, at a time when usages increasingly include
contents that are said to be delinnearised. The upheavals that cross the
audiovisual landscape make mission more central
public service, in a landscape that is crumbling, where
the logic that prevails is no longer that of the scarcity of the offer of programs,
but on the contrary that of hyper-choice. The first of the
the audiovisual landscape is undergoing major transformations that
my eyes to build on strong programs and original creation.
The profusion of programmes must lead audiovisual actors to
focus on the production of ambitious works, "strong brands",
which can be adapted to multiple media in order to
constitute a "universe" and not a simple program. The
which contribute massively to the financing and visibility of
have fully grasped the need to evolve their offer. He
it is a question of meeting the expectations and uses of new audiences,
their content as well as their modes of distribution. Your
speech at the Forum d'Avignon, dear Rémy Pflimlin, showed that
France Télévisions intends to be a pioneer and innovative in this field.
My goal is to give you the means to these ambitions.
The objectives set in the COM are sustainable and cannot be postponed
on the grounds of the hearings of some programs, on which
some commentators pay their attention, without even noting the
significant successes recorded by the group, particularly in terms of
information, fiction or sports.
Finally, exemplarity on the question of diversity which must be at the heart of the
the company’s concerns and strategy, both on the air and in
internal. It is not a question of treating this problem in a
superficial, reducing it to a matter of appearance, but
to guide the entire organization of the company to change in depth
behaviors and changing the way society looks in
all its components.
Finally, while leading these various projects, France Télévisions
complete the implementation of the Joint Undertaking, in order to
the strengths of each channel and meet the major audiovisual challenges.
An optimised organisation, between sharing support functions and
editorial autonomy of the antennae, must gradually bear fruit
and, by operating both responsibly and effectively, contribute to
give society the means for its development.
In line with the 2009 public broadcasting reform, which
allowed France Télévisions to emancipate itself in part from the constraint
advertising, the COM draws clear perspectives and guarantees sustainability
the company’s five-year strategy.
Witness the commitment of the State, the public resources devoted to
France Télévisions grew by more than 2% per year over the period.
Priority is given to program spending, which will increase more
resources, at a rate of +2.8% per year. In the same
time, non-program expenditures will be kept constant in
value, as a guarantee of the management efforts that the group is committed to
the period.
France Télévisions' 2012 budget is also under review
Parliament, as is the case every year, and
the framework of the Finance Bill for 2012. The measures adopted by
parliamentarians are of course sovereign, and the outcome of the debate
will be taken into account by the Government and France
Televisions. At this stage, the provisions proposed by the Government
for 2012, covering all public audiovisual companies, and
France Télévisions, as part of the national effort
of savings, do not call into question the overall balances of the COM,
for the period 2011-2015, nor the ambitions it carries.
In these times of economic uncertainty, the strategic roadmap of the
COM represents for France Télévisions a considerable asset which it
address the many challenges of the future.
Thank you.