France eyes electronics tax for public TV: report
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France could tax new computer, television  and mobile phone sales by 1 to 2 percent to help fund its  state-owned TV channels, Les Echos newspaper reported on  Thursday.
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France goes head-to-head with CNN and the BBC from Wednesday with the launch of its state-funded 24/7 news channel, part of President Jacques Chirac's efforts to make his country's voice heard.
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Mark Thompson says government will have to provide more money for public service broadcasting
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"With taxpayers' money, I am not prepared to broadcast a channel that does not speak French"  President Sarkozy said a French channel can only speak French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said his country will stop broadcasting its English- language 24-hour news channel, France 24. via BBC
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PARIS, Sep 24 (IPS) - Not a bad idea when French President Jacques Chirac  proposed a global tax on weapons sales and corporate profits to  pay for development in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
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France is pressing on with plans for a French-language rival to 24-hour global news stations such as CNN, a minister says, adding that such a station would help France explain its foreign policy.
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PARIS  - France launched the sale of at least 9.6 per cent of France Telecom, a move that could raise up to &#36;7.1 billion US that will be used to help the French government reduce its national debt.
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French President Jacques Chirac called for a tax to fund the global fight against AIDS on Wednesday, as new figures showed a modest rise in the number of patients receiving life-saving drugs in poor nations.
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Britain's media regulator said Tuesday it will consult the public on plans by British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC to launch pay-TV services on the country's free-to-air digital TV platform.
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The European Commission has delayed a  decision on whether to reform a tax on gadgets such as MP3  players that can reproduce copyright material, the European  Union executive said on Wednesday.
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French finance minister Nicolas Sarkozy unveils a budget with a promise to bring the deficit under control and high-profile tax breaks.
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Brushing aside  congressional suggestions that the nation is ill-prepared for  the conversion to digital TV in 2009, the Department of  Commerce on Monday unveiled its plan to help subsidize the  switchover from analog.
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France is to launch a global French-language satellite TV news channel next year, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has announced.
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Â· Broadcast from France aims at return to power Â· Former dictator blamed for thousands of deaths
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(InfoWorld) - Germany plans to introduce a monthly broadcast charge next year for homes and businesses that have an Internet-connected computer and don't already pay registration fees for television and radio service. One business association has called it "a complete rip-off." A heated debate about the fee, which also applies to Internet-enabled wireless devices and games consoles, has been raging in Germany since the minister presidents of the country's 16 states agreed to the plan in October 2005. It heated up again late Wednesday when one of the country's largest public broadcasters, ARD, announced a monthly fee of â¬5.52 ($7.00) per household and said that ZDF, another big public broadcaster, was in agreement. Under the plan, which will go into effect Jan. 1, households and businesses with a registered TV or radio are exempt from the new charge. Those without a registered broadcasting device but with an Internet-enabled PC, wireless device, or game console capable of receiving broadcasting content must pay the new fee. Germany isn't alone on this front. Ireland also plans to extend the definition of a TV set to include PCs, laptops and mobile phones under a new broadcasting bill, which was published for public consultation earlier this month. And the issue is likely to arise in other countries that use a broadcasting fee to help finance their state-funded public broadcasters. The planned fee in Germany, although lower than the â¬17.03 monthly charge initially proposed, has nevertheless drawn sharp criticism from numerous industry groups in the country. The German Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media (Bitkom) has called it "a rotten compromise that is being cemented into a payment scheme long overdue for change." The association calculates that over a four-year period, a PC would generate fee-based costs of more than â¬800 -- nearly the net price of the machine. German businesses could be burdened with additional costs of more than â¬150 million annually. The Federal Association of Small and Medium-size Businesses in Germany views an extension of the broadcasting fee as an attempt to force companies to help plug holes in the dwindling coffers of public broadcasters. The association called the move "a complete rip-off." Although the fee calls for a review in three years to take into account new technological developments, such as mobile phones capable of receiving broadcasts signals, German businesses worry that once a fee is introduced in the country, it's likely to stay.
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The French government plans to sell as much as 5.8 billion euros ($7.1 billion) of shares in France Telecom SA to reduce debt that breaches European Union limits.
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DirecTV and other satellite television providers want taxes "equalized" on fairness grounds -- which could mean higher taxes for cable providers and their subscribers.