13 - Télévision, la quête de l’indépendance
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Catherine Bertho Lavenir
Hand on the Signal: Technical Change and Collective Identity in French Television, 1935-1995
Le Temps des médias n°13, Hiver 2009-2010, p. 122-140.This article examines five moments of the technological history of French television: the setting up of the airwave network in 1953, the choice of a line standard (441 lines, then 819, then 625), the choice of the Secam standard in the early 1960s, as color becomes the norm, the decision to launch a direct-broadcast satellite, TDF1, and the failure of the cable effort of the early 1980s. We see that these crucial choices are made within a complex national and international context forcing an artificial differentiation of technical norms. A parallel can be drawn between the major traits of society and the rationale behind those technical decisions. France, producer of ORTF programs and opting for the 819-lines or the Secam standards, is a different country from that which allows Berlusconi’s La Cinq and is unsuccessful in its cable plan.
