WGGB supports French protest

Bernie Corbett, General Secretary of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain, has written to the French Ambassador in London and the French Minister of Culture to express the Guild's support for French writers' opposition to the proposal to remove advertising from France Télévisions.

In his letter Corbett said:

We do not oppose this in principle, because in the UK the services of the BBC are free of advertising and we would not wish this to change. However the BBC is well financed through a licence-fee system. It appears that the current French proposals will cut FT’s income by 800 million Euro. Such swingeing cuts will severely damage FT’s ability to commission and broadcast programmes of quality and threaten its ability to continue as a meaningful Public Service Broadcaster.

He continued:

We are also concerned that in this situation the ability of screenwriters in France to earn a living in the television industry will be seriously affected, both by a reduction in the amount of programming commissioned and by undermining the general level of payments to writers.

Yesterday French writers staged a one-day strike in protest against the proposals.