AUDIOVISUAL POLICY : NEW RULES PUT PUBLIC TV FINANCING TO TEST.

The financing of public television channels - and more specifically their public service mission' via new media, such as the internet - is being debated more hotly than ever in Europe. The European Commission is obliged to refrain from taking any risks before finalising a proposal for revision of the 2001 communication laying down state aid rules for the public audiovisual sector in the EU.

The EU executive has already been thrown against the ropes by 22 member states and the great majority of the European Parliament. The ideas it launched for consultation were "far too detailed," German Conservative MEP Ruth Hieronymi told Europolitics Information Society, on the sidelines of a hearing organised by her EPP-ED group, on 8 January in Brussels. But Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes wants a reform and has strong support from private commercial broadcasters, which want to obtain criteria for a definition of the public service mission.

The Director-General of the Commission's DG Competition, Philip Lowe, has announced a new proposal by next summer. A new public consultation will conclude on 15 January and there is still a lot to be done.

The EP's public hearing showed the extent of the opposing views. Mariola del Rio, of Spain's commercial TV Telecinco, defended the idea of complementarity' between private and public broadcasters. In other words, if public TV channels operate on the same commercial markets as private broadcasters, while receiving state aid and with their influence for obtaining transmission rights, "they are no longer fulfilling their public...