Excerpt from report by French news agency AFP
Paris, 31 October: The chief executive of Radio France Internationale (RFI), Antoine Schwarz, does not envisage a merger with France 24 [TV] and TV5-Monde but wants to “keep the three existing entities” in the public external broadcasting sector, with a “joint production centre to provide material for a single website”.
This is the position specified by Antoine Schwarz before a few journalists as the government is getting ready to publish its proposals in mid-November concerning a reform of the public external broadcasting sector, which is currently divided between RFI, the French international news channel France 24 and the Francophone channel TV5-Monde.
Antoine Schwarz, who stressed that he had put forward the idea of collaboration between the editorial staff of RFI and France 24 as soon as the latter was launched at the beginning of December 2006, reiterated his proposal for a joint editorial office where journalists would equally provide video, sound and text for a joint website.
Asked about the review started by the government, Antoine Schwarz said the idea of a holding company bringing together the three companies was a “very good idea” and that it was “useful”.
The chief executive of RFI has thus come out against an internal report which recommended an eventual complete merger of RFI and France 24 under a “new brand”. Nevertheless, he recommends “working together” in certain fields of production, which, according to him, corresponds to “the frame of mind of the steering committee”. [Passage omitted - France 24 Multimedia director Stanilas Leridon has rejected the idea of a joint website with RFI]
(Source: AFP news agency, Paris, in French 1723 gmt 31 Oct 07 via BBC Monitoring)
