Within the framework of the globalization of cultural industries, this book examines the relations between the pay-TV firm Canal+ and the French motion-picture industry. These special connections are essentially driven by financial obligations coming from the government to the channel Canal+ in exchange for premium movie diffusion. Implemented during a period of national autonomy and based on state-centered postulates, this specific policy had to be integrated into a global context leading to diminished effectiveness and a greater dependency upon transnational fluxes and actors.

Public policies thus become more vulnerable as processes of globalization implicate numerous socio-economic and cultural domains whose stakes had previously lain on the state scale. Depending not only on the national game but also on the global one, public intervention tends to be absorbed in the audiovisual spheres that are driven by non-national dynamics.

The links between television channels and the representatives of the film sector unfold in an environment marked primarily by an Americanization of contents and by audiovisual affluence. And yet in this era of standardization of cinema, only Hollywood productions resist erosion of attendance due to their specific creative process, the distribution capacity of the major studios and their financial dominance.

In addition, these Hollywood cultural products have been able to take advantage of the structural power of the United States that has contributed to the establishment of their supremacy in foreign markets. Thus, American transnational operators have increased their domination over developed countries resulting in a configuration of a world-economy. To the contrary, national producers have been marginalized and their creations have been largely depreciated, which explains the reluctance of Canal+ to finance them.

Moreover, this policy of relying on a private economic operator for the financing of French films is also questioned by transformations in the audiovisual sphere. Indeed, this last domain underwent an unprecedented liberalization and a concentration movement, which has led to an oligopolistic situation where only a few great firms dominate. Therefore benefiting from this changing environment, the French pay-TV group has expanded internationally.

But as the latter has become dependent on global conjunctures and on gradual inter-sectional/inter-sector integration, notably with its merger with the Vivendi Company, the whole process has made the French industry reliant on conglomerates strategies and on world markets. As a result, while these cinematographic financing agreements previously satisfied the French channel as the representatives of the industry, they now constitute a constraint for the firm as it is confronted with considerable financial difficulties from growing competition.

Demonstrating the global dimension of public intervention directly questions the objective of cultural diversity. Indeed, despite a fierce resistance led by few countries and transnational networks of civil society in the trading regulation-making process, the defense of national cultural industries turns out to be precarious due to the weight of firms on which French movie industry depends now. Besides, the prospect of a market predominated by a few world conglomerates encourages standardized contents in which commercial imperatives override cultural dimensions.

Yet, the question of maintaining a nationally subsidized cinematographic industry raises fundamental interests. Primarily because it sheds light on power relationships at the international level, this issue takes on an especially political aspect. In particular, it brings out the hegemonic domination that perpetuates the control of cultural legacy and therefore images diffused through these goods. Then, let us underline the economic dimension of motion-picture industry that confers consumer pattern. Finally, in addition to these two arguments, this study shows cultural stakes in international relations. In fact, structures of ideas and of values intervene in all the socio-economic fields and shape national identities through the circulation of norms and at the pace of symbolic distribution capacities.