I’m curious if there’s any people that have lived abroad and are surprised by the difference in the type of programming in that country as far as the TV is concerned, or vice versa, foreigners living in the States.
I ask this because I find the five channels I have here in Paris emmensly informing (especially Arte). There are always documentaries and news specials. I’ve learned more about the US and the rest of the world in two months than I ever really did with the fifty or so channels that we have in the states on basic cable.
The issue, I know, is the fact that most of the programs I see would never get huge ratings in the states. Two-hour, commercial-free documentaries on William the Conqueror’s invasion of England’s influence on the English langauge or on Edward Said and Daniel Barenboim’s Arab-Israeli symphony would never compete with the OC or anything like that.
I’m just curious if I’m looking at this wrong. For one, I do know that there’s the whole lot of reality TV and banal series dramas (including the OC, dare I call it banal) here too. One answer could be, “Well, most French people have cable, and they don’t watch the documentaries either.” I just don’t know.
One aspect to consider is money. The more you have, the more you spend. This doesn’t necessarily translate to quality, but it helps. In the US, paid advertising allows for big budget production values, locations, scripts, actors. You can still get crap, but shows like CSI, or Alias, or Lost or any number of current hits would be hard pressed to be made on a tiny budget.
I lived in Germany and while they had a few very good crime series, and a couple of good comedy series, they were all filmed with tiny budgets and it showed. (There have been a few big budget exceptions of course, but speaking on general terms)
So if you are watching a state-funded channel, most likely their budget is extremely limited and hence you get two hour documentaries on the plight of Bolivian cotton pickers. Nothing wrong with that, but my guess is the majority of the viewing audience would much rather watch something more exciting.
You only need to look at smaller stations in the US to see the same difference…they show films that nobody wanted to see when they were first run, and they show reruns of TV shows that are ancient or weren’t that popular to begin with. They aren’t doing this for homage…it is because they cannot afford to buy the hot new syndicated shows.
We certainly have that type of thing in the U.S. too. PBS has been around forvever and specialty channels like The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, The Travel Channel, Wings, Animal Planet and many more are pretty popular even as cable channels go. There are also things like CSPAN and the Weather Channel that a suprising number of Americans spend a suprising amount of time watching. Channels that go beyond SHOOT BANG SEX do very well here they just don’t get as much attention.
Agree - but those are niche channels that are not pretending to be anything else. I actually like every one of those you mentioned, but if those were the only type of channel programming available (as the OP suggested, and as I have seen in some European countries) I think I would be screaming for some SHOOT BANG SEX shows after a few weeks.
A lot of french people don’t have cable, but they still watch the reality shows rather than the documentaries. The audience ratings are quite clear.
Also, three out of the five channels you mention are publicly owned. So, their primary purpose isn’t to make money (and they receive public funding, so they aren’t completely dependant on advertisment). At best to compete with the main private channel (TF1… I won’t even mention the pure crap broadcasted on M6), in the case of France 2, in term of audience. Arte is indeed the channel with the best content by a long shot, but it also has the lowest rating, and tends to be considered as an elite/intellectual channel.
Also, private channels are limited by law in how much advertisment they can broadcast and when they can broadcast it. You surely noticed the three or four ads periods they manage to fit in between the evening news and the prime time movie or show. Since they can’t interrupt a show with ads at will, they add a couple of very short segments in between and crame the advertisment between them. It sure beats having the movie being interrupted half a dozen times by ads, though.
It’s not only about money. It’s also a deliberate policy. Arte doesn’t broadcast documentaries because they don’t have enough money for a big crappy show but because the channel had been created as a more cultural one. Also, there are a lot of influential people who are opposed to public channels aiming for the lowest common denominator.
Finally, I would mention something I thought interesting : the tastes of the public, according to some studies seem shaped to a significant extend by what they’re offered (and not only the other way around). So, showing a lot of documentaries will result in the public being more inteested in documentaries (the study I remember was comparing Japanese, French and ??? TV contents and the preferences expressed by the public).
Though it has now been terminated due to the retirment of his presenter, one of the most popular prime-time shows in France has been for a long time a litterary show (“Apostrophes”) which was by all measures very intellectual. People are obviously not going to watch what they aren’t even offered.
Whenever I stay in France and turn on the TV, there always seem to be at least 3 shows of the same style on simultaneously: several people, one of whom is the host, sitting around a table with a studio audience behind/around them, debating either extremely trivial or extremely serious matters. This is interspersed with the odd VT clip or someone singing a song.
After midnight, of course, it’s off to Canal+ to see what sort of filth is available…
So there’s a cable channel that shows nothing but Wings reruns these days? I always knew we were getting close to that, but man!
Sorry, couldn’t resist. I used to watch it four times a day on USA.
I’m a big fan of Discovery and such, when they’re not just showing car/motorcycle shows all day long. Unfortunately, I no longer have cable and am not sure when I’m going to be able to afford it again. Sometimes I watch PBS, but there’s a lot of really bizarre stuff on PBS…