International News Presentation: Past and Present

Darn, I like their unique style.

Also how do you guys all know about rebrands and stuff? In the US things are pretty tight lipped about changes - we can guess when local news stations will get graphics based on past patterns (CBS O&Os always tweaks every two years, NBC’s every summer Olympics ). But network rebrands almost nothing. The Today Show’s graphics were teased in Twitter but generally don’t know when they change, I guessed this time around because they didn’t cue the local affiliate NameDropper (which inserts Today’s ticker and time).

In the case of Franceinfo's changes, the broadcaster has announced tweaks to the programming lineup:

🆕Les grandes tranches d’information de la chaîne s'élargissent et se renouvellent :

☑ Renforcement de la matinale
☑ Evolution des formules
• du "9h30-13h"
• du "17h-20h"
☑ Arrivée d’un "13h-17h"
☑ "Franceinfo soir" accueillera un grand rdv d’info de 30’ → "Le 23h" pic.twitter.com/73PFTuheQy

— France Télévisions (@Francetele) August 22, 2019

That thread on Twitter also includes some short preview clips of the new lineup - suggesting a modest evolution of the existing graphics rather than a radical new direction.

Probably the most notable change is the launch of Le 23h as a replacement for Soir 3 (which, as best I can interpret, is being dropped by channel France 3).

Will France 3 also axe the late night regional and local news summaries altogether with Soir 3 ?

Emphasizing the 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. timeslot makes sense since the big French networks have no news before 7 p.m. (when 19/20 starts on France 3), even though that's the time when people come home from work and are eager to learn what has happened in the world.

According to the EPG, they've gone as well.

Incidentally in the Nord Pas-de-Calais region, they didn't have a late summary instead taking 'Edition des Regions' instead during Soir 3 with a sub-standard SD feed.

Just in the final days or never?

From when I watched, certainly over the summer there hasn't been a late night local bulletin.

I saw a regional edition of Soir 3 a few nights ago while I was staying in Poitou-Charentes. I think that some TV providers can't/don't distribute the regional variants, and instead they advise viewers to switch to the terrestrial feed in time for their local news.

Yes, there's a network feed given to certain providers which shows Edition des Regions. If you certainly watch via a IPTV provider (where it's very popular in France) such as Free or MyCanal, you'll get that instead of the local variant.

However what I forgot to mention is Nord Pas-de-Calais did show the local weather forecast. It's worth noting that the actual news bulletin for the region is in HD, but playout of packages and the weather is still in SD.

I'd speculate the that Nord PDC region was locally playing out Edition des Regions due to the poor upscaling of the video.

The 12/13 and 19/20 regional bulletins are being backprojected to 11.50am and 6.50pm to compensate. There will still be a weather forecast at around the time Soir 3 would have been per day though (between 10.30pm and 1.30am).



I would say that this is reflective of the French working day and that there isn't really a need/the demand for an earlier network bulletin. Many local TV stations have their 'main' news bulletins in that time frame though. Indeed I often wonder here in the UK, who the target audience of 5pm bulletins is given how many people are on the move at that hour?

The time of year night be another factor; many French cities are virtually deserted during the month of August. In coastal areas, there's probably a steadier supply of content and a lot of domestic tourists in the audience.

From mid-July until tomorrow, French TV is into holiday mode. News bulletins have regular stand-ins, the schedules are full of repeats, including in prime-time and in the case of Franceinfo, with the exception of the breakfast show, they run a wheel of news and features from 9.30am until closedown. They also do similar for Christmas and Easter.

M6 incidentally started a tad earlier and reverted back to normal presenters on their news bulletins this weekend.