Adam Bowie said at May 7th, 2007 at 9:38am

Having just come back from a week in Nice, the presidential election was carried to as great an extent as you’d expect.

A few observations:

The two and a half hour plus live debate on Wednesday was carried on two of the main networks - TF1 and France 2. Canal+ was showing Milan v Man Utd, and M6 was showing… the French version of Pop Idol. Also, a good third of radio stations on FM were also carrying the debate (I was also pleased to note that atmospheric conditions meant that I could hear both Five Live and Virgin on the Cote d’Azur on AM).

Canal+ changed their on-screen DOG (irritating channel logo in top right hand corner) from “CANAL+” to “VOTEZ+” which I thought was quite smart.

I was genuinely shocked to walk past a bar on the Promenade des Anglais which had chosen to rebroadcast on their plasma screens… Fox News. Who says the French don’t have a sense of humour?

Perhaps they’d be better off just rebroadcasting the somewhat better LC1 rather than spending millions on France 24.

Ian Deeley said at May 7th, 2007 at 10:22am

I thought it was pretty brave of BBC Parliament to take TF1 without subtitling or translation last night. Its a shame they cut away early to a random pre-recorded Commons committee.

Ben said at May 11th, 2007 at 12:39pm

Likewise in Scotland.. on the night of the Scottish Parliament and Local Council elections.

Scottish Television, sorry, STV, are showing Gaelic programming with no election coverage. Hmm.