• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, January 9, 2007

Imagine if Home Depot, Sears, and Wal-Mart weren't allowed to advertise on TV? Up until recently, that was the way things were in France.

There were some strange ideas in that country. Sex was perfectly fine on commercial late-night TV--but for some reason, retail was forbidden fruit.

For the French, the fear was that with that kind of marketing advantage big retailers would overwhelm the little retailers, which seem to be the backbone of the country. There was also concern for French newspapers that without TV regulations networks would dominate that print media. Without small retail business, French newspapers would have a tough time of it.

Despite the lack of big retailer TV money, big networks that are French institutions, like TF1, did fine.  Now that's all changing. Retailers big and small will be allowed on terrestrial French TV networks. (For some years now, retailers had been allowed to buy on newbie cable and satellite delivered networks).

To their credit, the French seemed hell-bent on protecting the little guy. Now? C'est la vie!

There's an interesting TV/media business parallel here. Up until the early '90s, French media buying companies, such as Carat Espace, were allowed to essentially "time bank" TV time--that is, buy TV commercial time from, say, TF1, and then resell it to clients. That changed when it was deemed some of those bigger media buyers had an unfair advantage.

Now, everything is on the up-and-up. French media buying agencies can only act as an agent for their clients. Small agencies and small clients get a more level playing field.

All this seems perfectly French: going in one direction in the early '90s, then heading into another some 15 years later.

Right now the organizers of the Tour de France want to rid the sport of all drugs to have a level playing field--to let the little guy have a chance. Kids shouldn't watch that event believing that some athletes have an unfair advantage.

Fifteen years from now, while they are rooting for the little guy on his bike, tell them to go to a store and buy that higher-priced apple at whichever local retailer remains.