Could the BBC be funded by a tax on web and mobile? In France President Sarkozy has just announced that, from next year,

“prime-time advertising on public television will be phased out, with the lost revenues to be replaced by taxes collected from internet, mobile phone and commercial broadcasting companies

“Internet and mobile operators will have to stump up a tax of 0.9 percent of sales—which could raise up to 380 million euros ($595 million), in support of the state-owned France Televisions, which controls the country’s four public channels. A further 80 million euros ($125 million) will come from taxes on commercial broadcasters.”

Given the potential future insecurity of the licence fee in a converged media world, you’d be forgiven for wondering how many MPs, Ofcom bosses and BBC eyes will be looking across the channel to see how and if this works – not to mention Channel 4 as they angle for their piece of the future public pie with 4iP.

Next up: newspapers call for a tax on Google. Oh, sorry, they already did that.

Your thoughts invited…

PHP Freelancer