French State TV & Radio Workers Strike Over Plans To Abolish License Fee, Merger Fears

deadline.com:

Staff at French state broadcasting companies France Télévisions, Radio France and France Media Monde were due to strike today in protest of government plans to phase out the TV license fee which traditionally finances their services.From early morning, 24-hour cable news channel France Info was re-running feature reports with a crawl that read the channel has been disrupted by the movement, while its radio equivalent was playing music rather than a steady stream of news.

Top free-to-air generalist channel France 2 was re-running clips from its morning show Télématin.Thousands of TV and radio workers were expected to take part in a demonstration in front of the National Assembly parliament building in central Paris later in the day.The TV license fee, currently at 138 euros ($146) per household per year, helps fund public broadcasters and radio stations, but the government wants to replace it with a budget that would cover several years.President Emmanuel Macron announced the measure during his election campaign in March, much to the alarm of the country’s audiovisual sector.Authorities have maintained that removing the fee would not lead to a reduction in funding, but unions – spanning the CGT, CFDT, FO, SNJ, SUD, Unsa, CGC and the CFTC – say the move will leave a 3.7 billion euros ($3.9 billion) funding hole.The government is planning to push through the measure as part of an upcoming bill aimed at tackling the cost-of-living crisis, which is due to be put to a parliamentary vote on July 6.

If the bill does not pass, the license fee will remain in place for now.Beyond fears around the future of the TV license, state broadcaster employees are also concerned about plans to merge France Télévisions, Radio France, France