French TV

France Ô is currently airing a loop of previews of shows produced across the French overseas departments that will be shown on France 2, 3 and 5. They include Death in Paradise which I didn't realise is a collaboration between the BBC and France Télévisions.

To confirm my speculation, Franceinfo goes HD on TNT from September 1st.

https://www.lefigaro.fr/medias/ecran-noir-pour-france-o-dimanche-a-minuit-20200821

France Ô is still on TNT, so it looks like they're going to keep the loop going until the end of August.

Franceinfo had the return of Samuel Etienne to Le 6h30:9h30 today.

Today was the rentrée for most French TV channels and in terms of news presentation, some thoughts:

BFM TV: Underwhelming. The music packages, graphics and programme names all terrible although there is "actual news" throughout the day and plenty of lives and non-Parisian news which is good. Moving Bruce Toussaint to 9am and bringing in 22h Max doesn't feel very impactful, although there was a good Q&A segment at 11.30am

CNEWS: Right wing politicians/commentators all over the gaffe. Seems to be non-stop news for the elderly. All the programmes (bar matinale) are exactly the same thing but with different names, presenters and durations - it's essentially a short news update, arrogant talking heads, the weather, a random bizarre semi-advertorial 'chronique'.

LCI: Probably the winner as Darius Rochebin's new show was quite a high-brow, quality watch. Even Twitter loved it, which for France is quite something (I think he must be JPP's successor in TF1's eyes)! Does feel very "Bobo Parisien" though, which is ironic given how TF1 bulletins are supposedly iconically regional. How Darius is on the same network as Éric Brunet is bizarre though - there is not a house style throughout the day I feel.

Franceinfo: Still 1 week to go, but hard to see how they will up their game. The only part of the day with a fighting chance is Le 23h as that is decent hard news up against 'talk' in the slot. Also a very high risk strategy of pushing the rentrée back and then not announcing the line-up right up until the day of, when audiences will have had a week to settle in elsewhere. If this article is right and they are putting more 'talk' in their schedule, it will have to shut down as the audience won't be there - https://www.leparisien.fr/culture-loisirs/tv/rentree-tele-quoi-de-neuf-sur-les-chaines-info-24-08-2020-8372202.php

I think with Covid, this was always going to be an underwhelming rentrée. I think the audience ratings will be interesting to find out later this week and of course, there will be a big test in November for the channels on their US Election coverage (with a view to the presidential in 2022).

https://www.francetvpro.fr/franceinfo/communiques-de-presse/une-rentree-au-service-de-levenement-et-de-lapprofondissement

Franceinfo's rentrée revealed with 3 days to go! Very bitsy. In brief, it's shortening the current blocks so that none exceed 3 hours, adding additional talk/politics programmes where the shortenings have occurred and weekend remains the same. Nathanaël de Rincquesen replaced by Patrice Romedenne (as occurred during lockdown). Not too sure this "fixes" the right things - weekend still gappy, afternoons potentially light (the 9.30am hour is going to repeated at 1pm which bizarrely could lead to even less live news - hoping Le 14h:17h is an actual tranche but looks unlikely) and effectively the same faces?!

M6 is the final mainstream channel to return to in-vision weather forecasts on August 24th after the Covid-19 outbreak left them and France Télévisions without in-vision forecasts (except during the merged morning show from Franceinfo which aired on France 2).

It does seem like a conscious decision not to schedule live programming up against the 13h/20h bulletins on France 2, which of course they’re not allowed to simulcast. Virtually encouraging people to look elsewhere if they want news.

France 2 finally have another morning game show to replace Motus. Mot de passe launches on Monday.

I caught the refreshed look for le 23h on franceinfo. I'm not a big fan of the new opening titles, though I think the monitor graphic is better.





French television has been putting people who are in the same studio in doubleboxes before covid made it cool.

The whole Franceinfo rentrée is a mess, with half of the programmes still not in place. The additional changes haven't improved anything - les informés at 9am was not les informés (2 presenters interviewing 2 guests isn't a debate), Le 14h:17h was decent 14-16, but 16-17 was repeats of bits, the graphics update on Le 23h were not in time to the music and the closing titles were the old ones?! 2330 needed a bottom of the hour to break up the 20 mins of reports and packages in the middle of the hour. Despite the remaining changes yet to happen, I think this channel is doomed. The only improvement was that Clémence de la Baume presented :l'éco which means someone has finally realised she is a very good interviewer!

Also to note BFM TV no longer have a journal de la nuit Fridays-Sundays which seems odd.

No change to Franceinfo on TNT, France Ô is still broadcasting, so still in SD.

Franceinfo is now in Full HD on TNT.