From Publishing Perspectives:
In France, publishers don’t want to advertise on television, even if doing so has become acceptable.
To help the French television advertising market—which is losing ground to various elements of the digital market— the French government has recently authorized book advertising, previously banned, for a two-year trial period.
For as long as it was forbidden, the subject of book advertising on television divided French publishers. Ironically, with the French government’s authorization of it, most book industry professionals are against it.
After three months of public consultation—and without any discussion with representatives of the book trade—the government published a decree on April 6, authorizing book advertising on “open” television for a two-year trial period. Until now, such marketing was authorized only on “closed” television—pay cable and satellite channels.
Rachida Dati, minister of culture and communication since January, and former minister of justice under President Nicolas Sarkozy 15 years ago, justified this change in comments made to the business daily Les Echos, saying that the change was to “encourage the French to cross the threshold of a bookshop … to buy a bestseller and leave with three other books under their arm.
“As the experiment with cinema advertising on television did not call into question the major balances between cinema and television,” Dati said, “I therefore wanted to generalize it and decided to test book advertising on television as well.”
. . . .
Before 2020, cinema advertising on television in France was banned to protect small independent films from the enormous advertising clout of American blockbusters.
And overall restrictions on access to television advertising for the book business date back to 1974.
Numerous economic sectors—including furniture, records and toys, which have since been authorized—were initially excluded.
Since the early 2000s, and under pressure from the European Commission, the subject has regularly come up, and yet the French publishers’ association, Syndicat national de l’édition representing France’s 700 biggest publishers, has always managed to put the brakes on authorization projects.
But not this time.
In a statement issued 10 days after the publication of the “surprise” decree, the SNE spoke out in favor of its repeal. Vincent Montagne, CEO of the Media-Participations group, said the new decree “worries publishing professionals, who fear it will weaken the sector and impoverish literary creation” in favor of bestsellers, for which the big publishers can afford to pay advertising.
. . . .
Antoine Gallimard, CEO of the Madrigall group, also spoke out against the decree, “in the name of great editorial diversity.”
Shortly afterward, on the same public radio station France Inter, Denis Olivennes, new chairman of the Editis group, France’s second-largest publishing group after Hachette, explained that television advertising could “accelerate the concentration of the market on its biggest sellers, to the detriment of diversity, because only bestsellers can bear the costs of TV advertising.”
However, it was indeed one of the Editis group’s publishing houses, XO, which took advantage of the decree to broadcast a 30-second spot for its flagship author Bernard Minier’s latest thriller, Les Effacés, published at the end of March. The publishing house, founded by Bernard Fixot in the late 1990s, had already been a pioneer in broadcasting literary spots on radio when the decree was authorized in the early 2000s.
Nearly a fortnight after the decree came into force, the publishing house—which published Emmanuel Macron’s only book prior to his election to the presidency in 2017—remained the only brand to have ventured into television advertising.
In the wake of the SNE’s announcements of its concern, several organizations, including the Conseil Permanent des Ecrivains and the Syndicat de la Librairie Française, also expressed their rejection of the decree.
“Along with the entire industry,” said the booksellers’ general delegate, Guillaume Husson, we have always been firmly opposed to television advertising for books. And we reaffirmed this during the public consultation.”
Link to the rest at Publishing Perspectives
Il faut résister au changement.
Exhibit Number 58,158,763 proving that France is not the United States.