Sarkozy`s Grip On Media Seen Boosted By Advert Ban

Publicly owned France Televisions will stop showing adverts between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. as part of a broadcasting shakeup.

French public television will stop showing evening commercials on Monday in a move critics say will starve such stations of funds and benefit private channels which back President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Publicly owned France Televisions will stop showing adverts between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. as part of a broadcasting shakeup announced by Sarkozy a year ago. The reforms include a total ban on advertising on public television from 2011.

The government says the reforms will improve the quality of programming by freeing public television from "the tyranny of ratings" and has pledged to make up any shortfall in revenue.

But unions, opposition Socialists and some public television staff say the reforms will cut funding to the four main state TV channels and lead to job losses.

The France 3 channel said one in four staff across the country were on strike on Monday. Action is expected at France 2 on Wednesday after public sector broadcast staff staged several strikes last year.

The measures will also allow the government to appoint the head of France Televisions and critics say France risks returning to the days of the ORTF, the tame state broadcaster of the postwar years. Critics have dubbed the new system "ORTS" or "Sarkozy's Radio and Television Office".

"It will lead to a serious and long lasting weakening of the public media," Socialist Senator Catherine Tasca said in Le Parisien newspaper.

Culture Minister Christine Albanel, in charge of shepherding the law through parliament, dismissed the criticism on Sunday.

"There is always a sort of hesitation in the face of big reforms. People have the impression of liking what they know, even if they criticised it previously," she told LCI television.

But Sarkozy's friendship with media bosses like Martin Bouygues, head of France's biggest private television broadcaster TF1 and businessman Vincent Bollore, whose yacht he stayed on after his 2007 election, have increased suspicions.

After determined campaigning by opposition Socialists, the measures have still not passed into law and the end to advertising has only come into effect because of a voluntary agreement by the management of France Televisions.

The bill was only passed in the lower house of parliament in December after four weeks of debate and some 700 proposed amendments. Debate in the Senate begins this week.