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France 24 24 hour English news

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Clair Newbie

Clair

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[quote user="Logan"]... The world according to Chirac...[/quote]

Much as I dislike the style of French news, rigidly orchestrated by a studio puppet/anchor and with little live feed from location, I'd rather have a choice of news feed than a 24 hour stream dominated by Murdoch's network and backed up by his written press.

I read (online) various newspapers (French, English) with various angles on the news (Telegraph, Independant, Le Monde, Le Figaro), because I am interested in seeing how the world is seen and analysed through the eyes of others, their culture, their politics and their history.

We are so much better served than China or Russia in that field...
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Clair Newbie

Clair

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[quote user="Dago"]I think it may only be on the internet tonight http://france24.wordpress.com/ with a launch tomorrow on cable & satellite, but can't find a channel number, maybe it will be apparent when it goes live? regards Dave [/quote]

[quote]Satellite coverage will begin on 8 December 2006, with the channel being carried on Eurobird 1, Badr 3, Nilesat 102 (all English only); Hotbird 7A, Astra 1KR and NSS-7 (English and French).[/quote]

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_24 as shown above.

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Logan Newbie

Logan

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[quote user="Clair"][quote user="Logan"]... The world according to Chirac...[/quote]
Much as I dislike the style of French news, rigidly orchestrated by a studio puppet/anchor and with little live feed from location, I'd rather have a choice of news feed than a 24 hour stream dominated by Murdoch's network and backed up by his written press.
I read (online) various newspapers (French, English) with various angles on the news (Telegraph, Independant, Le Monde, Le Figaro), because I am interested in seeing how the world is seen and analysed through the eyes of others, their culture, their politics and their history.
We are so much better served than China or Russia in that field...[/quote]

Amen!

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The Riff-Raff Element Newbie

The Riff-Raff Element

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[quote user="Benjamin"]This is an enormous step forward in adopting a common European language.

J C is finally acknowledging that if you want to get your message across you  cannot expect to do that in French.

He'll be singing the La Marseillaise in English next!!!!!!!!!

 [/quote]

On a serious note, properly played this could be a huge success for France.

Consider: they are lining up in front of CNN and BBC World. Now, CNN is

just dreadful. Alright, I've not watched for a few years, but when I

did...

My job at one meant a long time on the road staying in Godforesaken

fly-blown s**tholes for days on end waiting for some official or other

to grant me the honour of an audience. I think my waiting record was

six days, but one of my collegues spent 15 days in Cuba during the

rainy season in a hotel room with a leaky ceiling before she went

insane and had to be airlifted out. Anyway, all there was to do was to

sit and drink cans of beer in front of the telly - leaving the room was

not possible, just in case the call came.

Telly meant CNN. Now, although CNN is a "news" channel, a surprisingly large proportion of the output was not

news. I threw away the figures years ago (oh I noted them down more

than once, usually around day three), but writing from memory, in an

typical hour:

- 10 minutes were commercials;

- 10 minutes were adverts for what was on CNN later that day;

- 20 minutes were "you can receive CNN in these fine hotels" (only once

did the place I was staying in come up. I got a little overexcited.)

- 20 minutes of actual programing.

And when there was news it was from places like Kansas or Nabraska and

concerned potato festivals and the suchlike. Once I watched a three

hour (ok - 60 minute, excluding adverts) special on some stupid rodent

that could appearantly advise us on the likelyhood of an early thraw

that winter by looking at his shadow. I was in Novosibirsk at the time.

If you don't know where that is, look it up on a map and use your

fingers to work out how far it is from Moscow and then how far London is from

Moscow. Minus 35 at night - did I really care about what an overgrown

hamster from Massachusetts (it might have been New Hampshire, I forget)

thought about the weather? In Massachusetts (Vermont?) they had

heating. We didn't. A gas explosion near Tomsk (I thought that that was

just the name of a Womble too) meant that we had none. About 45 people

died in the explosion, but it wasn't on the news I could receive in

Siberia. Had I known I wouldn't have kept nagging the conciège every

hour about how cold I was. If one can be said to nag in sign language.

And then along came BBC World. At first I thought this would be a huge

improvement. The dear old Beeb after all has the largest news gathering

network on the planet. I was looking forward to in depth news

programes, searching documentries and Michael Fish giving weather

reports for parts of the world where I could actually be found. What

did I get? "Hard Talk" with Jeremy Bowen interviewing the likes of Jan

Lemming on the perils of flower arranging. "So, you accidently

juxtraposed a lily with a carnation and some pollen got on to your

frock?" "Yes Jeremy. It was dreadful; the dry cleaners nearly didn't

get the stain out!" I started drinking more heavily....

It became quickly appearant that the BBC were like bunnies in the

headlights of CNN. Despite their huge resources, considerable expertise

in production and staggeringly powerful brand they just couldn't get

over not being CNN. They should have wiped the floor with the

opposition. Instead they sought to immitate them (to the extent that

some presenters developed risible mid-Atlantic accents) and failed to

achieve anything like their potential.

Now we've got France 24. There are 140 million-odd people in the world

who have French as their first language. They will almost all choose to

watch news in their own language if they can. So, are CNN and BBC World

going to compete by launching French langauge services? CNN already do

Spanish and (bizzare this) Turkish services. But if they do, then the

French can almost claim victory - Anglo Saxons reacting to them for

once and more French language being broadcast as a result.

Alternatively they could both just ignore it and just wait for the

world to finish learning English. But France 24 also broadcasts in

English, and provided that the output is good and relavent, they might

just start to lose some trade, particularly amongst the International

business traveller community, a small but lucrative and influential

market to have access to. Next year France 24 adds Spanish (420 million

speakers) and Arabic (200 plus million). I think this has the potential

to get really interesting.

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