Due to a lack of wheat, will the majority of the 770 French community radio stations (including 35 from Brittany) have to cut the sound? This is the outcome that they have feared since reading a passage in the State’s 2025 finance bill which undermines their sustainability. “A priori, the budget allocated to the Ministry of Culture is retained at 4.4 billion euros. But the government is asking the general directorate of media and cultural industries to find €12 million in savings. An effort that 85% of community radio stations would support through the reduction in allocations from the Local Radio Expression Support Fund. Which would result in a drop of 30 to 35% in our operating budgets,” assessed Morgane Durrenbach, coordinator of Radio U, in Brest.
800 jobs threatened
With his Finistère colleagues Pauline Daniel (Arvorig FM), Aurélie Deniel and Glenn Jaouen (Fréquence Mutine) and Jeanne Blanchard (Transistoc’h), gathered this Friday, October 18, 2024, at the Brest office of MP Pierre-Yves Cadalen, they estimate that “70 to 80% of community radio stations and around 800 jobs are threatened in France” by this measure. Advertising – capped at 20% of revenue in exchange for payment of the FSEL – could not compensate for the loss. “And then we are not commercial stations but local radio stations serving the social cohesion of a territory.”
“Budget absurdity”
A position that has the attentive ear of the deputy for the second constituency of Finistère: “We must defend media pluralism. The production of information is central in a democracy. While the titles held by Bernard Arnault and Vincent Bolloré receive millions of euros in public aid, this political choice to attack community radio stations is a budgetary absurdity that I will fight in the Chamber,” promises the LFI parliamentarian from New Popular Front group.
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