The French Government may relax its regulations on television advertising, possibly allowing press and retailers to advertise on TV by 2003, according to French press reports and ABN Amro.
The broker says that the rationale behind the move would be to increase the attractiveness of the digital terrestrial television (DTT) platform to free to air channels. At present DTT offers little to free to air broadcasters and they will incur an additional transmission cost to be on the platform.
For TV groups like TF1 and M6, the increase in advertisers would be welcome news; for radio companies, on the other hand, it would be a blow as the current restrictions mean that retailer advertising currently accounts for 23.5% of radio’s revenue, as against 11% for French media as a whole. Regional press would also be affected, says ABN.
