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Retro: France; Tuesday, December 6, 1983 (w/ YouTube clips)

TVWorldwide

TVWorldwide

Let's get things started with a French promo for "Starsky et Hutch":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y6ITb0xjCc

:D

The following is adapted from Sydney W. Head's book World Broadcasting Systems (Wadsworth, 1985), which provided that day's schedules in a simplified form with genres instead of most program names:

TF1

10:00a School Programming
12:00n Interview, weather
12:30p Talk Show
1:00 News
1:45 Programming for the deaf
2:05 School programming
2:25 Drama (series)
3:25 Science
4:20 Documentary
5:30 Documentary
6:00 Candid Camera (United States)
6:15 Children
6:40 Variety
6:55 News brief
7:00 Weather
7:15 Regional news
7:40 Game show
8:00 News
From one year earlier, the 8PM news on TF1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzLYMJsC-FQ
8:35 Stage drama
10:10 Review of an art exhibition
10:40 Sports
11:10 News
Also from one year earlier, a clip of TF1's late news:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpWaCmm29zA
And a sign-off from 1984:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kran9f1x6po

Antenne 2

10:30a Pages from teletext
This is what they looked like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saJAxPmKJgk
12:00n News
A very brief clip of the noon news open:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQL7xS_gahw
12:10p Variety
12:45 News
1:35 Drama (series)
1:50 Interview
2:55 Drama (U.S. series)
3:45 Treasure Hunt (game show)
Not related to the U.S. game show of the same name, the French Treasure Hunt involved a helicopter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaSN5WOwu2s
4:45 Magazine
5:45 Children
6:30 Programming for the deaf
6:50 Game show
7:15 Regional news
7:40 Experimental theater
8:00 News
From the French broadcast archives, here is this very newscast:
http://www.ina.fr/archivespourtous/index.php?vue=notice&id_notice=CAB01020748
The anchor is Christine Ockrent, who once worked for both CBS and NBC.
8:40 Film, followed by a discussion about the film
11:15 News
Back again to YouTube, here is a clip of Antenne 2's late news from three months earlier:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq_2jsrY8w0

FR3

5:00p Regional programming, including news, from 12 different cities
From a few months later (February 1984), here are excerpts of FR3's regional news for Normandy (Caen):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa9C4M-J05A
7:50 Cartoon
8:00 Game show
Here is an ID shown before commercial breaks on FR3 in 1983:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jbRgY-qObE
8:35 Variety, including an American film
11:10 News magazine
11:30 Film (U.S.)
Sign-off from early 1985:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6SRpYXFDJY
 
I always understood French broadcast TV to be very highbrow...like PBS on steroids.
Very surprised to see Candid Camera and Treasure Hunt on here. Perhaps they also had
a solid 4 hr. Jerry Lewis block on Saturday nights?
 
FreddyE1977 said:
I always understood French broadcast TV to be very highbrow...like PBS on steroids.
Very surprised to see Candid Camera and Treasure Hunt on here. Perhaps they also had
a solid 4 hr. Jerry Lewis block on Saturday nights?
Click to expand...

French television was fairly highbrow during the RTF/ORTF era (1960s, early 1970s), when the state broadcasting corportation enjoyed a broadcasting monopoly (except in border areas where commercial stations from Monaco and Luxembourg that trageted France could be received). ORTF's two (three after 1972) networks had no competition, so they could focus on giving the people "what they needed" in addition to "what they wanted" -- although mass-appeal entertainment was never absent from French TV screens.

Unlike the BBC, however, ORTF was not really popular in France; its news coverage, for instance, was seen as always being defferential to the government in power, rather than being independent and questioning. In 1974/1975, ORTF's three networks were therefore split into three separate broadcasting organizations. They were still state-owned, but now became competitive rather than complementary. The amount of programming with mass appeal quickly increased and the percentage of highbrow programming decreased. This is the period from where this lineup originates.

The first network, TF1, was eventually privatized and new, fully commercial networks sprung up in the mid- to late 1980s. This situation led to even less highbrow programing on the main channels. France now has several specialized channels devoted to the arts and culture, but the flagship networks look and feel like TV elsehere in Europe, with reality shows, pupular American series, and the like.

This may surprise some, but France's major networks show more American programming that Britain's five major channels (excluding cable, satellite, and digital-only services).
 
I have never been to France so I don't know first hand myself but over the years I have heard from many who had been in that country that France is very open when it comes to full nudity on OTA TV, even in the commercials. For example my neighbors who spent their vacation in Paris some years back I can remember telling me that they can remember seeing an ad on Paris TV for cigars that had then-popular American wrestler Bill Goldberg walking around the beach totally nude and just a puffing away on his cigar. They also claim to have seen actress Anne Heche nude as well on French TV even though I seem to recall watching an interview with her on Entertainment Tonight shortly after the break-up with Ellen DeGeneres where she said she would never do nude scenes in American films, but I guess French TV is ok with her. Kind of reminds me of the stories I have heard in the past of some of Hollywood's biggest stars and how they are willing to do commercials in Japan but they won't as much as do anything, not even interviews on American TV.
 
or as someone involved with those international awards for TV commercials once put it...

"The Americans sing about it, the British make a joke about it, and the French just take their clothes off."
 
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