French TV

[Roger Darthwell]

Yep, I know how it works in the UK.

But overall, it's harder to make a full localization of BBC One, since it's not just a regional channel, but especially the MAIN British channel.

Something which can't be said completely for France 3, whose main is to be a regional channel first

The major issue for the BBC is that the English regions are SD only and not currently capable of outputting HD from the regional level. This will be rectified next year when the Freeview multiplexes are reconfigured to allow BBC and ITV regions to provide sub regional content, even if only three regions and one sub-opt will output in HD as their galleries are already capable of providing 1080i.

Staffing would be a major issue if all the English regions were staffed to playout national programming. I suspect there will still be a national structure to playout the networked shows on France 3 such as the afternoon game show block and the prime-time drama/films, but it appears France Télévisions will be funding the local teams to playout more regional content.

I don't think France 3 Sat will be going anywhere either. It'll probably be like how BBC One network and London used to playout the split regional headlines and networked weather were done at 7.58pm. There's a video on YouTube somewhere which shows how it was done from the same gallery at Broadcasting House. (Think F3 Sat and F3 Paris IDF instead).

Thank you for this explanation, I was wondering what was going to happen to France 3 Sat, you see given that France 3 is also carried on TV platforms in other countries (such as Switzerland, in Wilmaa, Teleboy and Zattoo) it made me wonder if the national France 3 was going to be kept at least for them, otherwise I would have wondered which region they were going to get instead! BTW BBC One used to have regional continuity in England, up until 1980 when it was axed because of budget cuts