Speech by Martin Ajdari, President of Arcom, at the presentation of the 2025 edition of the Digital Barometer.

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Madam Minister,

Madam President of Arcep,

Ladies and Gentlemen

Ladies and Gentlemen,

First of all, I'd like to thank you, Madam Minister, for inviting us here to present the 2025 edition of the digital barometer, in which Arcom has been participating for the past 3 years, and which is an invaluable tool for finding out about the habits of the French in the two areas of our regulation: audiovisual and digital.

These habits and uses have changed a great deal in recent years, and before leaving Benoît Loutrel to present the Arcom section of the barometer, I'd like to say a few words about the challenges these developments pose for our missions (quality and plurality of information, financing and diffusion of creation, social cohesion and audience protection).

1°) The first challenge is to ensure that audiovisual regulation and traditional media take digital into account.

As the barometer shows, linear consumption of television (and radio) remains predominant, and the TV set still occupies a central place in the heart of households, even if time spent watching TV is declining (-17% between June 2020 and June 2023). In the age of the smartphone, it's fair to say that the "set" still has a unifying effect in families, even if it has changed, and in 88% of cases is a smart TV.

Digital technology has also profoundly altered the way we watch programs, making them available to viewers whenever and wherever they want. This has been accompanied by the emergence of new players, notably video-on-demand services, which have taken on a major role in the last 10 years: over 50% of households now subscribe to them.

Since 2021, these services (Netflix, Amazon prime video, Disney+...) have been subject to the law on the financing of audiovisual and cinematographic works, under the control of Arcom, for a total of more than 330 million euros in 2023. That's around 1/5 of the total contribution. This harmonious integration of these new services, which stems from the AVMS directive, must be preserved in the face of attempts to undermine it.

2°) The second challenge posed by the arrival of digital technology in our lives is that of inventing a form of regulation for digital services.

This regulation is partly inspired by the objectives of traditional regulation, for example in terms of protecting the public or intellectual property, but adapted to the specific characteristics of online players.

In 2024, Arcom was appointed national coordinator of the Digital Regulation (the RSN), and as such is involved in the implementation of the so-called systemic European regulation, the central issue of which concerns the structural risks associated with very large platforms or search engines.

These risks are well known: online hatred, misinformation on electoral issues or public health, harm to persons under 18 and to the mental health of youngsters, not to mention scams and infringements of intellectual property rights.

Under the RSN, the very largest platforms are now obliged to identify these risks and take steps to mitigate them. For example, by being more transparent about their algorithms, by identifying deepfakes, and by swiftly dealing with reports of unlawful content from "trusted flaggers", which Arcom is tasked with approving.

The protection of persons under 18 is another emblematic example of these developments, which the French authorities have seized upon by imposing age verification for access to pornographic sites. Arcom has just initiated proceedings against the first six sites, which may go as far as blocking or delisting. This action will be extended to the most popular sites in other member states. And the issue of age verification and parental control is clearly not intended to stop at pornography.

This architecture of digital regulation is both very recent and very ambitious. It is also contested.

Its success depends on its appropriation by users. I noted this figure in the barometer: ¾ of 18- to 24-year-olds use schemes to report inappropriate content on social networks. This is very good news, because the RSN aims to give users back power over algorithms.

And it's this effort to educate the general public that we need to pursue, in close collaboration with all the relevant authorities. The operational success of the RSN will be a kind of "stress test" for European democracies in the digital age.