TV5 Monde

Tv5 USA
Category: Television Stations
Neighborhood: West Hollywood
Update - 1/28/2009
I'm truly amazed at TV5 (now TV5Monde). It assumes the viewer is intelligent and not simply interested in being a couch-potato.

You can watch the previous day's "Le Journal" (news edition, 25 minutes long) on the website:
http://www.tv5.org/TV5...

Not only that, various other programs can be viewed there as well, ones that the viewer might have missed, e.g., "Kiosque," which brings together journalists from around the world, for 90 minutes,for a round-table discussion on the major news events of the past week.

There also appears to be a year's archive of "L'invite," which interviews prominent French public figures, to watch at one's discretion.

One example of this dedication to providing its audience with serious programming was its interview with Dr. Mohamed El Baradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (and recipient of the 2005 Nobel Prize for peace) . It is posted in its entirety here:

http://www.tv5.org/TV5...

In contrast, I turned to http://www.cnn.org to see what videos were available for viewing. What I found were a bunch of 1.5 to 3 minute snippets.

On http://www.msnbc.com to watch a 2-3 minute short video, the viewer must wade through about 20 seconds of commercials. CBS's Sixty Minutes, on the other hand, apparently has previous week's programming archived for immediate viewing on its website.

On the half-hour nightly news, NBC, ABC, and CBS have probably have a total of 18 minutes of actual programming, with a total of four commercial breaks.

How is it that the francophone cable television clearly beats any American television network (or its affiliated website) in terms of actual news programming, both in terms of content, quality, and quantity.

(It also should be noted that France, the driving force behind TV-5, has about 1/5 the total population of the U.S., proving the point that size is not necessarily an indication of quality).

Why do Americans have so short an attention span? How can we expect to make wise decisions when our news comes in sound-bites? Why is the upper limit of our tolerance--when it comes to news, at least, no more than 7 minutes?

On the other hand, why do we tolerate so much high-decibel crass advertising thrown in our faces when it only serves to spur the very consumption that are threatening the quality of life on this planet?

Clearly, TV5 is much closer to a PBS affiliate in the U.S. (there is greater variety in the programming).

Now that we have a new Administration, I am wondering if we may see a shift in our priorities as a country, with a larger public sector to counterbalance the private sector that failed us in so many ways during the previous eight years (of George W).
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11/27/2008First to Review
* * * * (/2) * Four-and-a-half stars.

The world's no. 3 network after CNN and MTV*, TV-5 serves the international French-speaking community in at least four continents.

As one who began studying French in junior high school, this has been a great boon since I began subscribing to TV-5 seven years ago (through Comcast).

With the meltdown of the stock market, it may be good to better, too, understand the European "social democratic" model with its preference
for government regulation of the free market, as recently forcefully exemplified by President Sarkozy (and other G-8 leaders) in talks with Bush in D.C.

It is also interesting to note how TV-5 covered in their entirety all of the presidential debates in 2004 and 2008, as well as of election day both times How many Americans care to give a damn about elections in other major Western democracies?

* * * * *

There has been periodic problems with both the picture and the sound (tiling, black-outs, the image sliding back and forth, etc.), which I attribute to Comcast.

The monthly fee of about $10 would make it very affordable if not for the fact that Comcast requires one to subscribe to, at the very minimum, its Limited Basic, another $15.

But this 24-hour francophone (with considerable subtitling for non-French speakers) network provides some great programming (the news is broadcast every few hours).

It includes "Kiosk" (a a round-table with international journalists on the week-in-summary), "Des ailes and des racines," "Apostrophes" (with Bernard Pivot), "Envoye Special" (a 90-minute "Sixty Minutes" without commercials),"Histoi res de Chateaux," "l'Art du Jardin," feature films (including, unfortunately, too many French B-movies), "Cite Guide" (travelogues to celebrated cities), documentaries, sports, animation, talk shows ("Vivement Dimanche," which has featured Jane Fonda, Kristin Scott-Thomas, others), concerts, game and variety shows, and even a few soap-opera series.

Where else but France would you have serious but casual discussions with former prime ministers, intellectuals, film stars, etc. on a "talk show"?

News is directly transmitted principally from France, Switzerland, Belgium, Quebec. The other programs are principally French but there many are from Quebec. Many are co-productions of several countries, e.g., Germany, Canada, Algeria, etc.

All in all, the programming compares very favorably with your local PBS-affiliated public stations.

And there is no commercial advertising hawking detergent, cars, Viagra, breakfast cereal, etc.

Should be required viewing for high school and college students. (And strongly recommended for thinking adults, too).

The only drawback is that the days and times of regular programs such as "Des Racines et des Ailes," "Kiosk," etc. seem to change often (hence, the need for a DVR, but even that it is hard to know when to record a specific program without constantly checking the guide).

http://www.tv5.org

* Story of French, Jean-Benoit Nadeau, 2006, p. 292.

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