FRANCE / France Télévisions restored to a balanced budget

On April 15th the Board of Directors of France Télévisions approved the 2015 accounts, which are balanced – the first time since 2012 the group has not ended the year with a deficit.

Although the provisional budget, estimated at the end of 2014, forecast a deficit of €9.8 million, the net result is actually slightly positive, with a surplus of €200,000.

France Télévisions ended 2014 with a deficit of over €38 million. In a statement, the group said that “the cumulative deficit” of the last three (loss-making) years, “is almost €50 million less than the sum estimated in the Contract of Objectives and Means (COM), despite resources being down by nearly €90 million.”

This return to a balanced budget is due to “significantly exceptional results”: the “less than expected” costs of the voluntary redundancy plan started in 2014. The plan has reduced France Télévisions’ work-force to a historic low, with the company now having the equivalent of 9,932 full-time employees.

The 2016 provisional budget, “recently voted to equilibrium”, totals €2.843 billion gross, of which nearly 90% is financed by the Contribution to Public Broadcasting (License Fee) and the tax on operators’ turnover.

Sources : Satellifax, Le Monde