France plans shake up of private TV rules - paper

PARIS, Oct 8 (Reuters) - The French government is planning to ease rules on the ownership of television stations and production quotas, Les Echos newspaper reported on Monday.

In a summary of an article due to appear in its Tuesday edition, the newspaper said the government planned to take advantage of the need to implement in 2008 a new European Union television directive to introduce wider changes to facilitate the emergence of bigger private TV groups in France.

The country's leading commercial broadcaster, TF1 (TFFP.PA), is currently controlled by Bouygues (BOUY.PA). Rival M6 is controlled by Luxembourg-based RTL AUDK.LU, which is itself controlled by Germany's Bertelsmann (BTGGg.F).

Further details of the report were not immediately available.