Presentation of the 2021 Activity Report to the French National Assembly's Committee on Cultural Affairs and Education
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Madam President, Ladies and Gentlemen
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Thank you very much for your welcome and invitation. I'm delighted to be back at the French National Assembly, and in particular with your Committee, with which we had a great deal of dialogue during the previous legislature. I'm delighted to resume our regular exchanges.
Today, I'd like to introduce the President of a new institution. Arcom came into being on January 1, 2022, and is in fact the youngest of the independent public authorities. This hearing therefore supplies me with an opportunity, beyond the 2021 review, to present it to you, and to outline the major projects it has embarked upon.
1- The creation of Arcom has opened a new chapter in regulation, reflecting the profound transformations in the audiovisuel and digital landscape.
These transformations are reflected in a triple revolution:
- A technological revolution, with new ways of accessing audiovisuel programs. Today, 82% of French households are equipped with an Internet-connected TV set.
- A behavioral revolution, with new uses: the number of screens is multiplying (more than five per household in France), and non-linear consumption is developing strongly. 49% of households have a contract with a video-on-demand service, an increase of 27 points in three years.
At the same time, individual TV listening time continues to fall [3h39 in 2021 vs. 3h50 in 2013], particularly among youngersters, who are turning to other video content. Finally, almost 30% of French people now use the Internet as their main source of information.
- The third revolution is economic, with the arrival of new international players with considerable financial clout, and the onset of concentration movements between players.
Against this backdrop of rapid, structural developments, it was only natural that regulation should adapt to this new landscape: that's why we created Arcom. To tell you a little about our organization since January 1, 2022, our college now has 9 permanent members appointed by 5 different authorities. It's a solid, close-knit group, with strong, diversified expertise. The organization of our services has also been reviewed, with the creation of an online platforms department in 2021 and a creation department in 2022. We will also retain 16 regional offices, including 4 in overseas France. In all, Arcom now has 355 employees. We are now in the process of finalizing the institution's strategic project for the next three years, in order to set our priorities.
2- Since its creation, the institution has been hard at work deploying its new competencies
I'm thinking first and foremost of the fight agains piracy of cultural and sports-related contdnt. Last year, the loss of revenue resulting from these illegal practices amounted to around one billion euros a year.
Our action in this area is based on a new, highly responsive legal framework, involving close dialogue with rights holders, judges and Internet service providers. For example, the new proceedings take account of the urgency inherent in live audiovisual broadcasts of sporting events. Rights holders can apply to the court to block or delist services showing the competition in an unlawful way.
Following the judge's decision, Arcom can demand that ISPs extend the blocking measures to "mirror sites" not identified at the date of the judge's order. This procedure has proved its worth, blocking over 700 sites since January and reducing sports piracy by 50% in the first half of the year.
Supervision of online platforms is also playing an increasingly important role in our missions. First and foremost, this concerns the fight against information manipulation, which is a major focus during the election period. In fact, we will shortly be publishing our third assessment of the enforcement of the 2018 "anti-Infox" law. Our competencies in the fight against online hate have also been supplemented by the law of August 24, 2021 reinforcing respect for the principles of the Republic. Above all, platform regulation has taken on a resolutely European dimension with the drafting of legislation on digital services (DSA) and digital markets (DMA), to which we have contributed as part of the European Audiovisual Regulators Group, in which we are heavily involved.
We are now closely monitoring the implementation of these texts, which usher in a new era of digital regulation. To best prepare for this very important deadline, the French coordinating authority (the Digital Services Coordinator, as the DSA calls it) would benefit from being quickly designated by the legislator. Given its experience in regulating online platforms and its status, we believe that Arcom meets the conditions for designation as this authority.
This major project underlines the growing importance of the European and international dimension of our business. In addition to the DSA, we have before us the European draft legislation on media freedom, as well as the presidency of the French-speaking network of media regulators, REFRAM, which we will assume for two years as of October.
Beyond online platforms, the legislator has entrusted us with the specific mission of protecting person under 18s from pornographic content.
We have served formal notice on 7 offending sites; for the first 5, the president of the judicial court ordered the parties to enter into mediation on September 8. The ball is now in the sites' court, and I hope they will propose concrete solutions abiding by the provisions of the law.
Finally, since the entry into force of the Terrorism Regulation (known as the "TCO"), we have been working on another mission: supervising the fight agains online terrorist and child pornography content. A member of the Arcom board, a judicial magistrate, has taken on the task previously assigned to a member of the French national data protection agency (CNIL), of monitoring requests for blocking, removal and delisting of apology for terrorism and child pornography sites sent via the Pharos platform. According to the CNIL report, this represented more than 130,000 items of content verified in 2021.
Our institution has therefore been in full working order since its creation to implement its new competencies without delay, with rapid results to show for it.
3- Arcom has also been very active in its traditional core missions, with major projects for the audiovisuel landscape.
The years 2021 and 2022 have been marked by major electoral events, with regional elections, the third referendum in New Caledonia, the presidential election and legislative elections. As part of our mission to preserve political plurality on the airwaves, we closely monitored these major democratic events on TV and radio channels. We will shortly be publishing our assessment of this period, which for the first time will include a section on online platforms. Without revealing its content, we can say that the audiovisual media played their part to the full in covering these elections, but that the rules applicable to the counting of speaking and airtime undoubtedly offer room for reflection and improvement, or even simplification.
Arcom will of course be making proposals, but it will also be up to Parliament to take up this subject, which is essential to our democracy.
In a period of dense national and international news, we have also been constantly vigilant to ensure freedom of expression, rigorous reporting and control of the airwaves [in 2021: 111 cases examined by the college, 15 interventions including 1 formal notice, 3 warnings, 0 sanctions]. Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, we helped ensure that the legal sanctions adopted by the Council of the European Union against the channels RT France and Rossiya 24 were properly applied, and gave formal notice to Eutelsat, the European satellite operator, to stop broadcasting NTV Mir, a channel that actively relays Russian propaganda.
In addition to its missions to ensure plurality and ethical programming, Arcom has continued to support the transformation of the audiovisual media. I'll start with radio, to which the French remain very attached [in 2021, it was still listened to daily for an average of 2 hours and 42 minutes by nearly three quarters of the French]. In 2021, this medium celebrated three anniversaries: the hundredth anniversary of its creation, 120 years of associative status, and 40 years since the liberation of the airwaves. This momentum enabled us to organize, in conjunction with operators and the Ministry of Culture, the first Fête de la radio, which was repeated this year with the same success.
The rollout of terrestrial digital radio, DAB+, has also made significant progress: in the coming months, 50% of the population in mainland France should be covered by this new diffusion norm, which frees up the FM band and enhances listening comfort. This justifies the authorities' support for radio stations, particularly community radio stations, for whom dual broadcasting on FM/DAB+ represents a major cost, as well as the deployment of appropriate communication campaigns by operators to bring DAB+ to the attention of the general public.
Still in radio, our departments are currently examining a major issue: developments in the governance and nature of the Lagardère group's radio activities, following Vivendi's takeover bid.
The transformation of the sector also concerns television: I'm thinking in particular of the now-abandoned plan to merge TF1 and M6, which mobilized the Autorité's departments and college for several months. Tomorrow, we will publish the opinion we submitted to the Competition Authority on this project last May.
Arcom will now continue the proceedings to renew TF1 and M6's respective licenses, which expire in May 2023. A public consultation is underway, and will feed into an impact study, which will be published as required by law. We will also complete the renewal of Canal+'s authorization, which the channel has requested.
Alongside the private sector, the public audiovisual sector is also engaged in a process of transformation, adapting to new digital uses and making the most of its distinctive features. With an audience share of 30%, an economic weight of 4.5 billion euros and over 15,000 employees, the national program companies today play a structuring role in our audiovisuel landscape. The diversity of their supply, the quality of their news programmes, their decisive support for creation and sport give them an essential role in social cohesion; these companies also contribute to the construction of a European audiovisuel area and to France's influence in the world. To fulfill their various missions, they need appropriate, predictable funding that safeguards their independence, which the regulator is charged by law to guarantee. In this respect, we have followed the reform of public audiovisuel financing with great interest, and hope that it will pave the way for a more global reflection on the strategy and expected role of these companies, to which we will contribute.
We have also been involved in a number of other projects in recent months. I would like to mention two of them:
The first concerns our powers in favor of social cohesion, to which I attach the utmost importance, and which were also extended last year by the "Climate and Resilience Law", which makes provision for the conclusion of commitment charters by online advertising operators, under the aegis of the regulator. This mission reinforces our efforts to reduce the environmental footprint of audiovisual and digital players.
The second issue concerns support for French creative talent, and in particular the modernised financing of this industry. The revision of the "TNT" and "Cabsat" decrees, on which we have issued opinions, has enabled us to adapt TV channel investment obligations in audiovisuel creation.
The adaptation of funding also concerns on-demand audiovisual media services (SMAD) since, in application of the 2018 European directive, at the end of the year we proceeded with the agreement and notification of obligations for the main international services established outside our territory but targeting the French public, namely Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+. At the same time as developments in release chronology, this step represents a major advance in modernising our model for supporting French and European creation, with investment obligations that have no equivalent in the European Union today. These agreements have been signed for a limited period, and discussions are continuing between certain operators and professional creative organizations. We are continuing to sign agreements with French and foreign SMADs.
Since its creation, Arcom has both deployed its new missions and pursued its historic ones. While in recent years we have been able to carry out these missions with a constant workforce and budget, the expansion of our remit has now led us to ask for an increase in our resources, and I would like to take this opportunity to ask for your support in the context of the PLF 2023. I would like to thank you for listening, and remain at your disposal to answer any questions you may have.
Speech by Roch-Olivier Maistre
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