U.S. shows fly flag in France
Major nets to include Stateside hits in primetime
|
This fall, all the major TV channels' primetime skeds include U.S. product, except for Franco-German culture web Arte.
The phenom has led to some bitter ratings battles and has seriously irritated the French film biz.
In a surprise bid to cut pubcaster France 2's solid Sunday night ratings from U.S. series, TF1 ditched its regular Sunday night film Sept. 3 and rolled out "CSI" instead.
It worked: TF1 grabbed a 36.7% audience share while the audience for France 2's "Cold Case" was nearly halved to 15%.
A week later, "CSI" beat the first episode in a new season of "Without a Trace," albeit with a narrower 30.1% vs. 18.5%victory.
The French film industry, which relies heavily on TV coin, was up in arms about TF1's stunt -- even though broadcasting obligations require the web to continue investing a percentage of its revenues in Gallic features.
However, fewer primetime slots mean less visibility for movies, a worrying prospect for French film folk.
"This isn't a divorce, we are being blatantly cheated on," vet helmer Claude Lelouch complained last week.
Films aren't the only programming weak link being challenged by U.S. series.
M6, France's second commercial web, caused a ratings upset Sept. 8 when the first episodes in the third season of "NCIS" drew 5.5 million viewers, edging slightly ahead of season six of TF1's flagship reality show "Star Academy."
Last year, in the same timeslot, season two of the American skein drew around 4.8 million viewers vs. "Star Academy's" 7.3 million.
At TF1, orders reportedly came from above to boost "Star Academy" by giving viewers more songs they could sing along to.
Sure enough, the following week -- which featured perfs by Pink and Orson and a schmaltzy, slightly out-of-tune "We Are the World" sung by contestants -- "Star Academy" was back on top.
M6 also is pleased with the Thursday primetime ratings it's getting with "Prison Break."
More U.S. series are waiting in the wings.
M6 will unleash "Commander in Chief," season two of "Desperate Housewives" and, in early evening slots, "My Name Is Earl" and "Everyone Hates Chris."
Determined not to be outdone by foreign imports, French drama toppers are commissioning newer, edgier homegrown fare.
And as long as they have the budgets for it, local producers aren't quibbling too much about the amount of foreign fare on the screens.
As elsewhere in Europe, broadcasting toppers know local hits pull in bigger audiences than the best-performing U.S. series, as last year's miniseries "Dolmen" proved by notching up 12 million viewers for TF1.
M6 soon will try its hand at a rookie cop series with new skein "Les bleus."
TF1's upcoming shows include a series adapted from hit bigscreen thriller "Crimson Rivers."
And then there is the web's soon-to-air Gallic "CSI," the hit U.S. show's first, but perhaps not last, local-language adaptation.
