France to subsidize newspapers

[Michael]

I could barely believe my eyes while reading this news article...

President Sarkozy has announced a vast increase in state support for print media. Included in this is a pilot program by which teenagers will be given a free yearlong subscription to the newspaper of their choice on their 18th birthdays.

Source (http://www.splicetoday.com/politics-and-media/your-perfect-newspaper)

Can someone please tell President Sarkozy that subsidizing the 'dead-tree' editions of newspapers is a remarkably dumb thing to do.

1. Subsidies once granted, are almost impossible to revoke.

2. Subsidized companies always modify their operations to optimize/maximize any available subsidies - forever. Their business plans henceforth will all be focused upon maintaining/defending/maximizing the subsidy.

3. Dead-tree distribution is considered to be the biggest weakspot of the newspaper business - and that the dead-tree distribution has NOTHING to do with collecting or distributing actual news. Dead-tree distribution is profitable as an advertising vehicle. It has nothing to do with reading news.

Indeed, surveys tend to show that consumption of media is up nowadays (especially amongst youth). The purchase of dead-tree editions is definitely falling.

Ergo, President Sarkozy is not actually subsidizing news reading habits. That can be done a whole lot cheaper using the internet (where young people actually go to read the news). President Sarkozy has in reality just created a new subsidy for the delivery of advertising based on the consumption of dead-trees (and automobile pollution to deliver them).

This is ugly from a public policy perspective (subsidizing private corporate market) and from an environmental perspective (subsidizing the distribution of dead trees and the delivery by automobile).

[Dominick]

Your analysis may be entirely correct but it's irrelevant (yes, that's becoming my favourite word ;))

It doesn't make sense because the goal of the bill has nothing to do with economical principles per se. The sole reason for this legislation is the fact that some of the media moguls that will benefit from this are Sarkozy's personal friends. That's it, that's all.
Apart from some right wing populist talk and ditto measures it's all The Midget has been doing in his legislature. See also Berlusconi. It would appear this is the future of European politics; populists endorsed by media moguls, some of them with close ties to organized crime. Let's call it a Mafiacracy.

[Michael]

Your analysis may be entirely correct but it's irrelevant (yes, that's becoming my favourite word ;))

It doesn't make sense because the goal of the bill has nothing to do with economical principles per se. The sole reason for this legislation is the fact that some of the media moguls that will benefit from this are Sarkozy's personal friends. That's it, that's all.
Apart from some right wing populist talk and ditto measures it's all The Midget has been doing in his legislature. See also Berlusconi. It would appear this is the future of European politics; populists endorsed by media moguls, some of them with close ties to organized crime. Let's call it a Mafiacracy.
Actually, I think that system of Government was invented by the Russians.

And if that's President Sarkozy's game here, that's even uglier than just a plain old dumb subsdy for a old dying market. Subsidizing dead and dying industries has a long and well pedigreed background (and always fails in the short, medium and long term). But funneling public subsidies to private supporters is just plain ugly and tends to sap the vitality of the state itself.