The committee on public service broadcasting in Sweden recommends that the name of the television licence fee ‘tv-avgift’ be changed to ‘public-service avgift’ in order not to annoy people when they pay avgifter on their laptops.
Update: the report is now available. Additional elements include VAT payment on the licence fee, with the differencein funds for [...]
From the comments in this Le Monde article it seems that Sarkozy has actually thought about this, and wasn’t speaking in impromptu fashion.
This suggestion goes against the trend of moving such appointments away from the executive. Reaction is somewhere between hostile and incensed.
The argument in favour of presidential nomination is that too often the current [...]
My paper on the 2008 election and vote shifts between the parties has now been published at CADMUS, the EUI’s online repository.
BBC told to, um, reflect the country more. The bad news is, the report found that Scots were dissatisfied with the BBC’s news and current affairs. The good news? They were just as dissatisfied in the eighties, but no-one within the BBC was publishing reports on it.
Television licence fee to be index-linked to inflation in [...]
More electoral reform in the air – this time not for national elections, but for next year’s European Parliament elections. Veltroni has come out in favour of a watered-down threshold of 3%, compared to the 5% originally proposed.
Why is Veltroni doing this? Presumably he wants to preserve those other opposition parties – the radical left, [...]
ADNKronos has learned that the PdL is preparing to deposit in the Senate draft legislation to reduce the licence fee for Rai. “Objectively”, said Senator Alessio Butti, member of the parliamentary watchdog commission, “the licence fee is extremely high. But it’s a tax, and as such should be paid. More than abolition, therefore, it’s possible [...]
The opposition is up in arms about the proposal of the Justice Minister, Angelino Alfano, to place restrictions on the use of telephone interceptions by investigating magistrates.
It’s hard to make the case against some limitation, since the number of wiretaps in Italy dwarfs that of other countries. Affari Italiani claims that 80,000 wiretap requests were [...]
Sarko accepts licence fee increases for France Télévisions after having been against it; PPDA leaves the eight o’clock bulletin.
The left-wing parties have now officially withdrawn their representatives from the Copé commission, arguing that the Commission’s recommendations are either going to be laid down by the Elysée or ignored.
For a reform that seemed to have been drawn up on the hoof by Sarkozy, there’s quite a lot of intransigence going around.
Daniel Kawczynski (Cons.) claims that the BBC is covering Polish immigrants more than any other ethnic group, because the BBC is too politically correct to cover immigrants from different (African, Asian, Caribbean) backgrounds.
Where does he go to make the allegation? BBC Radio Four’s Today programme.
The article covering the BBC response seems to have a firmer [...]