[Douai]

Has anyone heard of France 24?In July of this year, Chaine Française d'Information Internationale changed it's name to France 24.It is a global 24-hour French-language satellite TV news channel supported by the French government.It is coming to Asia,the Middle East,Europe, and the U.S. later this year."The French government hopes that such a channel will be able to counter the Anglophone sphere of influence with the BBC, CNN, Sky News and VOA, which grew in importance with the Iraq war as America & Britain were on the allied side. The French government was concerned its point of view was lost in the world, so an international channel was proposed" (Wikipedia.org).The channel will also supposely have time-slots where the news is spoken in English (similiar to Deutsche Welle).One interesting aspect about the channel is that it will be run by a partnership between the TF1 Group and France Télévisions, which are rival French television groups.TF1 is a private channel (also supposely conservative leaning?), and the France Télévisions networks are public (France 2,France 3,etc.).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4485256.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_24

What French news network/networks do you watch?

[BenP]

TV5 Monde

[Hexenmeister]

Sounds interesting, but I don't see how they're going to be a direct competitor to CNN and BBC if they're broadcasting primarily in French.

[Douai]

France 24 news recently unveiled their logo:


Someone made an informative weblog in English for the upcoming channel: http://france24.wordpress.com/

Also I found out that France 24 will be broadcasted in multiple languages:
"Initially, France 24 was supposed to be available over one single feed. On that feed, 20 hours of a day’s programming were to be in French and four hours in English. However, such choice would limit the channel in its plans for expansion (for example, France 24 would be classified as a cultural channel in the United States, thus would be lost in an ethnic package on cable).

Jut over two months ago, France 24’s board of directors decided to request an additional 10 million Euros to enable the creation of a second feed. So the plans today are for France 24 to be available in two versions: one only in French (24 hours a day) and the other one with only four hours in French and the other 20 hours in English.

The English feed would be the only one available in the United States and other non-French speaking regions. As for the French feed, it would be available in France and other regions such as the Middle East where French is a commonly spoken language.

In the following years, France 24 will add Arabic and Spanish. The Arabic language would probably receive one dedicated feed. As for Spanish, it would share the airtime on the English feed.

As for the website, it will be available from the start in French, English and Arabic."
Source:http://france24.wordpress.com/2006/0...gain/#comments

[Nanbawan]

Brought to you by the same genius who decided to name France's main stadium 'Le Stade de France'.

And people say the French are damn too sophisticated...

[ilv2]

^is it not le Stade [d'Île]-de-France?

Originally Posted by Hexenmeister

Sounds interesting, but I don't see how they're going to be a direct competitor to CNN and BBC if they're broadcasting primarily in French.

I heard about this before and hold the same reservations. But then again, why not, only positives can arise from the venture (for the viewer, the gov't or whoever it's subsidizing could stand to lose if it's not well received).

French language news isn't particularly hard to find, BFM-TV is 24/7 in addition to all the other internet feeds like itele etc. Then there's always the 20h Journal that gets uploaded right after the broadcast.

[Douai]

Originally Posted by ilv2

I heard about this before and hold the same reservations. But then again, why not, only positives can arise from the venture (for the viewer, the gov't or whoever it's subsidizing could stand to lose if it's not well received).

French language news isn't particularly hard to find, BFM-TV is 24/7 in addition to all the other internet feeds like itele etc. Then there's always the 20h Journal that gets uploaded right after the broadcast.

Did you miss the part of my earlier post that said there will be two versions of France 24?There will be two versions of France 24.One will be only in French and the other one will have four hours of broadcast in French and the other 20 hours in English.

[ilv2]

yea, but in my opinion four hours is a trifling compared to the twenty. It might help a little, but in the long run the success of the venture will depend on the larger picture of accepting a francophone 24 hr news channel rather than how the time is allotted to accommodate those who do not speak the language.

[Douai]

"It’s now official: France 24 will start broadcasting its programs on the Internet on December 6, 8:20 pm (Paris time). The network’s official website address is http://www.france24.com

Thirty six hours later, on December 8, the network will be available over cable and satellites in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

France 24 did not release any details concerning the programming at time of launch."

Source: http://france24.wordpress.com/

[guignol]

i suppose an english language version would be good; al-jazira is also starting an english language channel.

i would think the 4 hours in french would be in "basic french"... i'm no fan of basic english (newspeak) but anything that may help loosen the hegemony of the english language is a good thing.

presenting the french (or any other) view of the world in english is weak tea. to really change perspective imho you need to change language; it opens up new neuronic pathways, it's like going through the looking glass. and only once you've seen both sides can you start thinking about which is the dark one.