Ministers to take a close look at TV

Date: 19/09/1996

By Chris Johnstone

IRELAND will be looking to rally European support for public television when it hosts a brainstorming session on public and private broadcasting at an informal meeting of EU ministers next week.

Irish Arts and Culture Minister Michael Higgins, an ardent supporter of public service television, has put the issue on the agenda for the 25-26 September meeting in Galway as pressure mounts from private firms for European Commission action on complaints of unfair competition.

France's leading broadcaster TF1 has filed a complaint against the Commission in the European Court of Justice for its delay in dealing with its case against public sector France 2 and France 3. TF1 alleges the companies misuse their mixture of public funding and advertising receipts to outbid it for programmes, especially the rights to big sports events. Similar complaints are waiting in the wings in Italy and Spain.

The whole issue is a minefield for the Commission, which is sensitive to accusations of cultural barbarism if it overtly backs the private companies, and is acutely aware of governments' desire to keep some public funding as a means of exerting influence over broadcasting.

Ireland is one of the few European countries without a private television network. The public sector is actually on the offensive, with a new Irish language public television station opening at the end of this month.

Higgins has spoken out against attempts to put a price tag on the extra value added and the costs incurred by public service broadcasters to help the Commission gauge how much state aid they should receive.

DGIV, the Directorate-General for competition, has twice tried, unsuccessfully, to get outside consultants to define what extra costs public broadcasters face in an attempt to establish fair competition between the public and private sectors.