The Political Economy of Noncompliance: Adjusting to the Single European Market by Scott Siegel

Author:Scott Siegel [Siegel, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Political Science, World, General
ISBN: 9781136721366
Google: UGarAgAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 16490863
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2011-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

Source: CNC

From 1981 to 2008 total box-office receipts climbed from approximately €500 million to over a €1 billion, but attendance remained stagnant at an average of 240 million, falling from a high of almost 400 million in the 1950s. What the data show is that although overall attendance remained stagnant, receipts increased, mainly reflecting the increase in ticket prices over time.

Thus, the larger challenge to the French film industry was whether French people would spend their leisure and movie francs in the cinema or through the purchase of videocassettes for enjoyment in the privacy of their own homes. As a result, the Cinéthèque case had little to do with the production of French films. Instead, the case itself was about restricting the medium of the film experience and dealing with an exogenous technological shock that was common to the movie industry, and cinemas in particular, around the world.

The arrival of a new technology, the videocassette recorder, would have two effects. First, it was primarily a threat to the cinema industry, but not to the government’s ability to raise revenue through the special taxation scheme. The arrival of the videocassette and subsequent pirating of films still running in theaters was a danger to the survival of France’s patronage scheme if attendance went down even further. However, movie theaters were not the only source of revenue. Since the 1940s, France had succeeded in diversifying the sources of financing for the French film industry. Direct state aids, television fees and banks were also strong alternative sources of financial support. In addition, beginning in the 1970s, France attempted to foster its industry by arranging co-productions with other European countries, beginning with Italy. In the 1980s, under the Socialists, two new mechanisms of state financing were made available. First, the avances sur recettes are direct payments to new filmmakers of promise who produce films of quality, since the soutien automatique favors large, established film producers. Second, the Socialist government also created the Société pour le financement du cinéma et de l’audiovisuel or SOFICA, a financial group whereby a group of producers can invest up to fifty percent of taxable revenues into productions and receive a tax benefit as a result (Hayward 2000: 202–203). Data from the Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée (CNC) shows that although attendance in national cinemas has been relatively stagnant since 1980, total funding by the government for French films increased from approximately €200 million in 1981 to €1.1 billion in 2007.36 In addition, box-office sources of movie revenues decreased as a share of total state funding, even though there was no dip in box office receipts (see Figure 3.7).37

Figure 3.7 Public funding for French films.

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