Blog de Philippe Aigrain's blog

European Commissioner Viviane Reding and the UK Presidency have given high priority to the modernization of the European audiovisual regulation. Mrs Reding has just declared that she aims at creating a modern, flexible and market-oriented regulatory framework (NB: the flexible bit is in another speech). To prepare minds for the arrival of  modernity, the Commission has published 6 issues papers on 11 July 2005. Every audiovidual lobby in Europe has enthusiastically responded confronted only by the always valuable (but isolated) European Bureau of Consumers Unions . Member States and Commission audiovisual experts are gathered today in Liverpool at the invitation of the UK presidency. The French daily news paper Le Monde has devoted an article to the orientations proposed in Liverpool. The options that emerge from the issues papers and the answers to the consultation will appall all those who, as I do, give high priority to diminishing the hold of television on human time and the hold of advertising over television (on this subject see proposals in the concluding chapter of my book Cause commune, pp. 252-256). Those who wish to see reaffirmed the right to quote audiovisual contents for the sake of presentation of information will be no less appalled.
Available documents lead to think that the Commission is ready to propose :

• to cancel the limit on daily advertising time, leaving only the limit on time in a given hour (already amended to mean calendar hour instead of any hour of brodcast). According to the Carat agency this would result in a 30% increase in broadcasted advertising duration.
• to delete globally in Europe the prohibition on product placement and the few remaining limits on interruption by advertising, replacing them by some token provisions (such as the protection of religious shows, apparently considerd worthy of being protected from the advertising mass).
• to exempt audiovisual distribution on computer networks from any regulatory restrictions on advertising (don’t be fooled by mentions of “appropriate measures using coregulation”).
• and finally, to oppose the adoption of efficient measures in favour of quotation rights for extracts of audiovisual contents for the sake of presentation of information and oppose any significant measure in favour of media pluralism (such as regulatory media concentration limits).

For those who would not have yet reached the action-triggering level of indignation, one will note the extract below from the answer of the RTL group to the Commission consultation. It shows that the contentious statements by Mr. Le Lay, CEO of TF1, describing his business as being about selling available brain time was not an individual anomaly, but rather the truth of a particular way of doing business. Finally, if you wonder, the answers of public broadcasters are in strict accordance with the share of advertising in their budget. BBC, that pratically does not rely on it is politely (it’s BBC) concerned about the increase in advertising time, while ARD/ZDF that has only limited dependency on advertising admits its principle while still opposing product placement. Many others are silent or speak through EBU that endorses the worse (in my opinion) scenarios (with some nuances on changes to regulation regarding product placements).

RTL Group stresses that the issues paper is wrongly referring to “a balance between the revenue needs of some  broadcasters, on the one hand, and the need to maintain programme integrity and quality, on the other”. This presentation is misunderstanding the economics of television. Advertising revenue is far from being in contradiction to programme quality and is, on the contrary, an essential guarantee for programme quality. We underline, in addition, that this is not only the case for “some broadcasters” but for almost all of them and particularly free-to-air broadcasters, due to the prevalence the dual financing model for most of the public broadcasters.

The French daily newspaper Le Monde reports in its edition dated 17 September 2005 that neoconservatives and the religious right (WorldNetDaily.com, National Review, Ohio’s 153 House Churches Network) are exploiting the success of the film March of the Penguins to push their anti-women rights agenda. As a dedicated supporter of emperor penguin studies and someone who marvels in the diversity of nature’s productions, I would like to wash off any stain on the emperor penguins honor.

This is easy to do, because the authors of this misrepresentation are abysmally ignorant of the true nature of penguin achievements (among other things). Let’s first consider monogamy that the penguins are supposed to give us in example. They practice it … but review it on a yearly basis. Sorry, but to illustrate a longer-term approach to monogamy in the animal realm, one has to have recourse to wolves.

What about dedication to protect life? I am not so sure it is a very good idea to copy all animal species’ practices on that account either, nor to look for analogical inspiration in any particular species. Some might find attractiveness in the idea of the religious right being inspired by the praying mantis copulation practices, but I prefer them to evolve by other means. The film maker Luc Jacquet is right to warn us against drawing any religious or ethical conclusion from what is story-telling based on observation. Without falling in this trap, can we nonetheless try to get some inspiration from emperor penguins about when it makes sense for us, as humans, to consider that an independent life form has emerges that deserves social protection ? If emperor penguins tell us one thing, it would be that it is when the embodiment of potential life has become independent of the mother’s body (in penguin’s cases as an egg, in human cases as a newborn) and becomes an entity for others. Of course we can anticipate that moment in our imagination, as lovers and tentative parents. Let’s not anticipate it in our laws. Until “birth”, it is much better to reason on the foetus as a part of the mother’s body (which is enough to give it some protection, but not against the mother’s interest).

What of the deeper argument on evolution and creationnism? Many bright minds have covered this subject, and if Stephen Jay Gould did not convince creationnists that their arguments were based on a total misunderstanding of evolutionary theory, I am unlikely to succeed. So let’s just remind those who claim that “life is too complex to have emerged from a random selection process” that evolutionary theory is not about random selection processes and tells us -tentatively, as any scientific theory- that life is too diverse and contingent to have emerged from any conscious will.

Finally, I regret it, but emperor penguins tell us very little about whether the flying spaghetti monster theory deserves to be taught in school.