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167 Comments
- inactive, on 01/06/2009, -4/+71Unless I'm mistaken, I think TV advertising (at least in the US) was originally supposed to make up for the fact that people got the feed for free. Now that everyone pays TimeWarner or Comcast ridiculous money for monthly service, the original justification for the advertising is gone. Whether you can justify both ads and high monthly access fees under a new rationale is debatable I guess.
- perryc, on 01/06/2009, -17/+73I thought I could never say this about French, but good for them
- mikeophile, on 01/06/2009, -1/+408pm to 6am is considered primetime in France? Are the French insomniacs?
- dissolutionman, on 01/06/2009, -2/+34Wait, this guy was the conservative?
- luminique, on 01/06/2009, -0/+29They do. It's called PBS.
- inactive, on 01/06/2009, -15/+41God, I knew this place was gonna be all over France's dick about this. This is a stupid idea, and it's only for state financed channels (only a few for them). All the money lost in ad revenue will be made up in taxes on private industry, which is then passed down to consumers. This is just the French government taxing its citizens so the government funded networks don't have to worry about ratings and subsequently get a free ride. It's ***** retarded, and wouldn't even be feasible in the US.
Just because an idea makes you *feel good* doesn't mean it's a good idea for the government to attempt to implement it. - ShadowofAres, on 01/06/2009, -0/+24Well, the deal with cable is that you're paying for more channels, not paying for the same feed as everybody else. And while Time Warner and Comcast charge you for the service of making these networks available to you, the ad revenue goes to the networks, who need the money to get good/better programming. Now, if you were paying the networks directly, there would be no justification for advertising. But when you pay that cable bill, the money doesn't go to the networks, it goes to the provider, who uses it to pay employees and expand the network.
- inactive, on 01/06/2009, -0/+23I haven't had sex in years. Yay digg
- Chaotix, on 01/06/2009, -4/+25I haven't watched an ad in years. Yay torrents
- kintec, on 01/06/2009, -0/+20I m a french guy, and i just wanna explain some things
we have to pay a tax for public television (around $160) as soon as you have a TV, public tv in france it's 5 channels. - doiveo, on 01/06/2009, -3/+23But how will they know the number call to talk to hot women standing by *right now* ... in their bikinis?
- maz2331, on 01/06/2009, -1/+20Even in the USA, we never allowed ads on public TV. PBS was always funded by foundations and fundraising drives - as a kid I hated them, but now know why they were important.
- IRPro, on 01/06/2009, -2/+21uhhh, there are no commercials on public TV. Public TV is NOT Network TV.
- BrettFromTibet, on 01/06/2009, -9/+23If they did this in the USA, I might start watching broadcast TV again... there's *some* decent programming, but the irrelevancy and obnoxiousness of the commercials is unbearable to a sensitive and sophisticated viewer...
- saranagati, on 01/06/2009, -3/+17buried for all the morons who dont know the difference between public television and network broadcast television
- qwertydvorak, on 01/06/2009, -0/+13actually some of your cable bill goes to the networks. that is what the whole dispute a week ago between viacom and time warner was all about. viacom wanted more than the $300 million a year they were already getting from time warner.
one thing i wish they would ban is infomercials. at least make it so most of the cable channels weren't able to become infomercial networks all night long. - diggdatt, on 01/06/2009, -0/+13Conservatives in other countries are like our Democrats in the US.
That's how far to the right the Conservatives in the US are. For example Conservatives in Canada believe in free healthcare. However the Liberals in other countries are more extreme than ours here. - matt9m5, on 01/06/2009, -2/+14Meh, here in the UK we have the full BBC network with no Commercial Adverts ever.
- zeptobyte, on 01/06/2009, -0/+12Just like the internet. You pay your ISP for internet service, but Digg still has ads for its own costs.
- maz2331, on 01/06/2009, -0/+12What really peeves me is paying for my TV service and still having to put up with commercials. One or the other is acceptable, but not both.
- twiztidsinz, on 01/06/2009, -0/+10PUBLIC television, not Network television.
- f54280, on 01/06/2009, -3/+13You are reading that story with your "France is a socialist country" glasses. That is not the case.
What is happening is that Mr Sarkozy (who cannot be described as left leaning, as he basically is a neocon) have been elected by the media. The French media choose an opponent for him that he was sure to beat and ran stories on how she was the only credible opponent for 18 month before the election, basically handing him an easy victory, in a misogynous country like France.
Ties between Sarkozy and the private media are very strong. For instance, Bouygues, the owner of the main private TV network, is Sarkozy's son godfather. But that is just one of many ties. For another instance, the draft of the law was discovered as being written by TF1 employees, due to names in the Microsoft Word document that were not erased (due to word quirks).
The idea behind the law is simple:
* Advertising markets are going down. Sarkozy already allowed private network to increase the advertising time, but this was not enough to prevent the market to shrink.
* By removing advertising on all public networks, the money will flow into private networks, and TF1 is the biggest one. It is an incredibly lucrative gift.
* By removing self-financing on the public networks (which are much more critical than the private ones about govt politics), Sarkozy have a very powerful tool to control them.
* In addition, the law states that the president (more specifically the government, but the govt is named by the president) will name the director of the public network.
Basically, this will turn all the television channels as propaganda tools. In France, all media are very close to each other (ie: radio hosts are often also in telelvision business, and the same goes on written press). He is just working on his re-election in 31/2 years. - tavallai, on 01/06/2009, -1/+11This is not just taxation for taxation's sake. Nor is it a way to socialize television. No, it's a ploy to benefit Petit Nicolas' friends in the private sector. While his pals like Martin Boygues will benefit from getting 50% more advertising on their privately-owned networks, France Television will be sucking the government teat - AND THEREFORE BE SUBJECT TO MORE GOVERNMENT CONTROL.
On top of that, part of this bill is to have a presidentially-appointed chairman for France TV, instead of an elected one. Again, this just stands to give more media power to Petit Nicolas, who already had a hand in replacing a very popular evening news anchor with one of his cronies.
Sarkozy has some good ideas, and did a surprisingly good job taking charge with the presidency of the EU in the last six months, but he's still a crony capitalist in the mold of Bush and Cheney. Less interested in providing for his constituency, more in making bucks for his pals. - Zapple100, on 01/06/2009, -2/+11 If it wasn't for commericals, I would never have found out about Sham Wow.
- inactive, on 01/06/2009, -2/+11wait arent you the guy that called New Zealand a 3rd world country earlier? Oh! It is you!
http://digg.com/tech_news/Campaign_to_Stop_File_Sh ... - kintec, on 01/06/2009, -1/+10In fact in france We don't really like Sarkozy he is our Bush, he only does what he wants, spends our money like a dumbass, expensive holidays etc... and I don't think he actually understands people, he is screwing france up. And for a lot off french people , a new "MAI 68" may be soon happens if nothing changes
- TimAllanCard, on 01/06/2009, -1/+9yore
- wtbuser, on 01/06/2009, -1/+9I can't believe these comments. This is essentially taxation for taxation sake, outcomes seem to be erroneous. Increasing taxes on advertisements is simply going to reduce the revenue of private television channels where advertisement buyers will buy less due to these disincentives. Commodities and services cost. Diminishing a stations ability to generate revenue, to purchase television shows or operate, isn't going to do anything beneficial for television. If you think we have bad programming now just wait till this is duplicated here...
- twiztidsinz, on 01/06/2009, -0/+8Premium channels like HBO were ad-free
- BullHunter, on 01/06/2009, -4/+12Good for them. Hopefully next they will stop the media from doctoring news stories. Not that it will ever happen...
- hanger69er, on 01/06/2009, -1/+8I hope this hits the U.S.
Taxes and more taxes, just what we need.
/s - brainflakes, on 01/06/2009, -0/+7The BBC give me several decent ad free stations for a fee of about £10 a month
- kuzotz, on 01/06/2009, -0/+7PBS
- Prism123, on 01/06/2009, -0/+7it hit the US in 1969, its called pbs
- crushfan, on 01/06/2009, -1/+7It's called BitTorrent.
- arc100, on 01/06/2009, -0/+6Its called PBS. France removed ads for PUBLIC television
- slashduck, on 01/06/2009, -1/+7Why would you want to ban infomercials?
infomercials have paid and gone through the same process other shows did to get on the air only instead of hiding advertisements as product placement they just come out and make their purpose known.
Infomercials are like the stripper who doesn't ***** around with "I am paying my way through school" they know why they are on the pole, or on the air, and that is to just make money and sell to you. only replace lap dances with the tiger shark vacuum cleaner and the stripper with chef tony
principles are the same though - TimAllanCard, on 01/06/2009, -1/+7I think the point he's trying to make is that you're a moron.
And the irony is that you don't realize he's calling you a moron.
You did start your first post with HURRRR
Also I agree completely with fragowell, public tv ads are a good thing. In fact, adverts are a win win situation, as long as we don't get to the point where we're all brain washed and we can't do anything but think about frosted flakes.
Mmmm frosted flakes... - Jacolyte, on 01/06/2009, -0/+6Give it a few more years or decades, none of this will even matter, because all forms of entertainment will eventually migrate to the internet... where everyone has a fair chance to control their own content/station/network/blog/feed/channel/whatever
There was originally a need for laws and regulations on Television because of the limited number of radio frequencies. Once everything has migrated online, none of that will matter. - welshie, on 01/06/2009, -0/+5apart from adverts extolling the virtues of buying a DAB radio (so you can listen to all the BBC radio station - coincidentally the same exact same adverts that play out on the commercial radio stations who are pushing DAB).. and adverts telling you to buy a TV licence.
- okcoolok1234, on 01/06/2009, -2/+7Wow, how are they going to pay to make the shows? If it was all for free, there wouldn't be any money to play any one and all we would have is no budget youtube.
Like this stuff....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGA7CE91y6Q - wtbuser, on 01/06/2009, -0/+5PBS doesn't require taxation on advertisements of non-public television stations to sustain itself. It's expenses are paid from the federal trough, telethons, and corporate sponsorship.
- inactive, on 01/06/2009, -15/+20HURRRR making fun of France is so cool. Man, you are so macho and secure in your cocoon of xenophobia and jingoism.
The French have a substantially higher quality of life, don't waste away their lives working as much as humanly possibly, have hot women, and aren't led by a chimp of a leader. So maybe you should be saying that about the French a little more often. - MajorTomG, on 01/07/2009, -0/+5This is the reason the BBC has quality educational programming instead of re-runs of Friends. They can make shows without worrying about how many twenty-somethings will watch them. Leave that to the commercial channels. Documentaries of the quality of Planet earth for example can be made without patronizing audiences or pandering to idiots by using tetchy sound effects and crash zoom photography. If people who only watch shows edited like an MTV late night special on the 'worlds best bikini videos ever' don't like it, it won't matter. All the better for the rest of us.
People here in the UK bitch about the TV license but don't really stop to think about what TV in the UK would be like it we ditched it. It would be like TV in the US where a 20 minute show is stretched over 45-60 mins to fit the adverts in.
Sky charge a lot more than BBC to bring you ad supported channels showing mostly imported shows. Doesn't make too much sense to me. - omgwtflawl, on 01/06/2009, -1/+6The reason we pay for cable is because of the FCC's vicelike grip on the balls of the airwaves. ***** the FCC.
- ltethe, on 01/06/2009, -0/+5I lol'd
- JestaMcMerv, on 01/06/2009, -0/+5wtbuser is right. It's important to keep in mind the difference between public and non-public and where those funds are coming from. the biggest difference is that in the US we don't really have a solid public broadcaster that we can compare this to like the BBC or the CBC - although the CBC incorporates commercials to supplement public funds.
- inactive, on 01/06/2009, -2/+6New Zealand quality of life is ranked in the top 20 in the world. They have a poverty rate of approximately 10% (they don't keep poverty statistics so this will have to suffice)
http://english.cri.cn/2947/2008/10/22/2021s416936. ...
Compared to the poverty rate of oh lets say the United States that sits at about 15%. You can check census.gov for the actual number, page isn't loading for me.
Also the story with the Maoris is pretty much the same as Native Americans in the US. What that has to do with anything??? ***** you I'm done talking to you - yacinebouatrous, on 01/06/2009, -0/+4our despot president Sarkozy did this to prepare for the next election, french people oppose this because it's a present for his friends private channels, the ads costs will rise on their channels due to the fact that they will be the only ones to have ads at prime time.
On top of that, from now on the president gets to elect the CEO of France television, which will make the channels surely censored and biased in favor of Sarkozy and his associates
This is the reality - AquaOSX, on 01/06/2009, -0/+4yeah, but how will they learn about the Snuggie?
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