In an editorial last week in Liberation, Philippe-Olivier Rousseau, a member of France’s Conseil Superior Audiovisual called for the French government to appoint the CSA as the single regulatory agency for the new age of telecommunications. Rousseau said that the multiplication of audiovisual services, the growth of satellite and individual video services will render more and more difficult the control of programme content. Thus, the centre of gravity for the council will have to move toward an economic regulatory activity, he said. France will be obliged to create, by 1997 at the latest, a new telecommunications law to bring into French law the European Community directive that calls for the liberalisation of telecommunications services as of January 1 1998. With the creation of that law, Rousseau said it is highly probable that a single telecommunications regulatory authority will be established as well, which will pose the problem at that time of co-ordination between this authority and the CSA. Rather than have to worry about such co-ordination, says Rousseau, the government should look to North America for its regulatory model. The convergence of telecommunications and audio-visual should translate into the establishment of a ‘single regulatory agent’, which would exercise its authority on both the network and its services. In the US, the Federal Communications Commission handles regulation of telecommunications and broadcasting. In Canada, the Radio & Television Council saw its remit extended in 1976 to telecommunications (becoming at the time CRTC), he said. Is it a coincidence then, that these two countries are today the uncontested world leaders in establishing operational information superhighways? Is it not time that the CSA, as well as the government, substitute the notion of communication for audiovisual activities? Rousseau wrote. The CSA can be an essential driver in the modernisation and development of communications industries, but only if on the one hand it takes over all regulatory functions… and on the other, that its authority be extended to all communication areas, he concludes.
