Christine Ockrent's lecture explores and analyses the ethical consequences of rapid change in the French broadcasting system. She details the shift at TF1 Network from a public-sector organisation run by ‘miserly, incompetent civil servants’ to a private-sector broadcaster, owned by a civil engineering company which believes there is ‘no reason why a TV station should be run differently from a pipes factory’ and whose ethical ‘code of behaviour’ includes ‘simple mottos’ such as ‘Kill the enemy, the competition, the weak’. Ockrent believes that this subject will interest a British audience because ‘in many ways the French situation epitomises the fears which many of you nourish about deregulation’.

Ockrent makes three key claims. First, while deregulation may be a prerequisite for the expansion of broadcasting, it is ‘inevitably damaging to standards’. Ratings have become the key consideration with game shows, sitcoms, American series and films dominating French television schedules resulting in ‘conformity and uniformity’. The paradox which emerges is that ‘we have more channels … but we seem to have less consumer choice…. Standards of news programmes have also declined as …some presenters … imitate entertainment shows… and …what is interesting has long since overrun what is important…. Ockrent…s second argument is that whatever its dangers, expansion is essential if the broadcasting system is to survive and compete internationally. This will require large capital investment of the kind Murdoch has made in the UK to develop satellite and cable channels in France.