[eccr] The financial situation of public radio-television companies in Europe is deteriorating

Title: The financial situation of public radio-television companies in Europe is deteriorating

The financial situation of public radio-television companies in Europe is deteriorating

*    The growth rate of the public broadcasting companies is significantly lower than that of the private channels
*    The levels and methods of financing the public sector differ widely from one country to another
*    Commercial income is becoming increasingly important.


The European Audiovisual Observatory (Council of Europe, Strasbourg) announces publication of the first volume ( "The Economy of the European Audiovisual Sector") of the 2002 edition of its Yearbook.

For its eighth edition the publication has a new look and provides, in particular, deeper financial analyses of the main areas of the European audiovisual sector. These new analyses have been developed from a database showing the accounts of 25,000 companies in the sector. In analysing the income of public broadcasters the Observatory has the benefited from the collaboration of the Information and Statistics Network of the European Broadcasting Union.
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Content overview of the present press release

The Diversity of Public Broadcasting Systems in Europe
Diversity of Financing Sources
Very Different Levels of Contribution per Inhabitant
Growth Rates Sluggish and Divergent
Deteriorating Financial Results
A Multiplicity of Causes
The Need to Achieve Greater Transparency in the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe

Table 1: Radio and TV licence fee per household (2000) - In EUR
Table 2: Average revenue per capita of the public broadcasting systems (2000) - EUR / habitant
Table 3: Financial results of the public television companies in the European Union (1997-2000)
Table 4: Profit margin of public television companies (1995-2000) - In %
Graph 1: Profit (Loss) of public television companies in the European Union (1997-2000) - In EUR thousand
Graph 2: Financial ratios of public television companies in the European Union (1997-2000) - In %

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Source: http://www.obs.coe.int/about/oea/pr/service_public.html