U.S. TV series are giving French fiction programming a run for its money, having monopolized the Gallic small screen last year according to figures from French audiovisual promotion association the APA, released Monday.
French fictional programs took just 13 of the top 100 most-watched shows for 2008, while U.S. imports monopolized the list with 57 spots.
This marks a major shift from 2005 when French fiction took 56 of the same 100 spots and U.S. shows just four.
via THR.com.
I’m French so I now what I’m talking about and i nedd to bring here an accuracy. Contrary to the US, the top 100 most-watched shows is not the top 100 different most watched-shows with an average number for each show.
In France, this annual TOP 100 is the list of the 100 most watched episode from all the shows which aired between January 1st and December 31st.
In fact, the 57 spots represent only 4 shows : “CSI Miami” (with 24 spots), “CSI” (with 23 spots), “House” (with 6 spots) ans “Criminal Minds” (with 4 spots).
Boby, thanks for the info!
Looks like France is the perfect demo for CBS!
“CSI Miami” got 23 spots? French TV must be really bad.
See, everyone thought cbs was targeting old white guys when really they were being sophisticated and continental.
Being French, I can confirm what Boby is saying.
“Looks like France is the perfect demo for CBS!”.
The thing is that procedurals 90% of what is imported to us on the major networks.
So basicly we have choice between French-made productions, or US-imported procedural series.
While non-fictional programs sometimes catch my attention (depending on the subject), I extremely rarely find a TV movie/mini-series that sounds good to me (but they still attract easily at least older people) and I still have to find a french series that I’ll like even a tiny bit as much as some US shows I love.
While I have nothing against procedurals, watching any of them (CSIs, NCIS, Criminal minds…) got boring very fast, and I doubt I’ll watch House again because it’s extremely close to procedurals, and I got tired of it (that was to quote the 4 shows that made up the Top 100).
If I want to watch “creativly interesting shows”, I’d have to get cable.
Thanks to the internet, we know have more possibilities but I’m watching less and less TV, except news, and sports when I can get it. I usually end up watching shows on my computer by paying for episodes, or torrenting them when I can’t find another away.
Though obviously, I belong to a minority.
Actually all that’s written up there is true for German TV, too. Especially House is a big hit over here, regularly getting shares of over 30$ in the 14-49 demo. And CSI and all other kinds of crime procedurals are also big hits. Also series like Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives and Private Practice are huge hits, even though they don’t reach the numbers House, CSI and NCIS do.
On the other hand shows like Heroes or Lost only generate mediocre numbers..
” “CSI Miami” got 23 spots? French TV must be really bad. ”
You can’t say it. Like I said, the TOP 100 is the list of 100 most watched episode of all show which aired between January 1st and December 31st. Since “CSI Miami” and “CSI” make huge rating in France, almost every broadcast is in the TOP 100.
If I compare to the US, I could say American TV must be really bad since I’m sure a lot of the US TOP 100 is episodes of “American Idol”.
French TV relies HEAVILY on American Shows so does Canadian television. The highest rated program is Grey’s Anatomy which regularly gets 2.42 million viewers and HOuse with 2 million. While Flashpoint which is suppose to be hit in Canada is ranked as the 18th highest rated program with 1.297 million.
The dominance of US procedurals in terms of ratings poses a challange for French productions which are struggling lately. I guess it’s a problem especially for TF1 (M6 don’t produce many tv series/tv movies anyway. And France 2 and France 3 seem to want to go on with their usual movies/miniseries line + some experiments in and there).
TF1 recent experiments in trying to launch some “US style” new series (like Flics or Profilage) seem to have generated decent ratings at best, but nothing great. And their strategy in terms of fiction still looks confused (but their fiction director has recently left his place, so it may change): they go from trying new “modern style” series and the following month proposing Claire Brunetti (a new versione of Une femme d’honneur).
In the end Josephine and Julie Lescaut are still the top in terms of French fiction…..I wonder what people posting on US ratings forums (CBS procedurals don’t usually attract many fans among this group) would say if forced to watch a Lescaut or Louis la Brocante episode!
Hey French guys, are the American Shows dubbed or subtitled?
Foreign tv shows (including the americans) are shown in dubbed versions on french and german tv.
I’m french too, so forgive my bad english…
The procedural drama like CSI are brodcasting on the number one channel TV in France: TF1, and yes, this channel looks like CBS (cop show, real tv… very bad channel)
French people are very careful with fiction, they don’t take any kind of risk and when they want create something new, they do an american kind of drama. Few years ago, TF1 did Hopital, in wich a young lady sleept with her superior doctor and lived with two friends roomate… Hum… That’s sound like grey’s anatomy, right?
French tv don’t know create something good, exept for cable like Canal+. It’s very sad cause i’m sure we have a lot of gifted writer here, but we don’t have the same system as you have (pilot season, writer pool, 22/24 episodes, each years).
“Hey French guys, are the American Shows dubbed or subtitled?”
-> Dubbed (horribly most of the time), but they tend to also propose original subtitled nowadays.
For France, I don’t know about Grey’s ratings. House’s episodes are run 3 episodes at a time (@ 9PM : 2 new, 1 old usually), and it usually easily wins nights (Life follows at nearly 11PM).
Hell, even reruns dominate the nights. 3 consecutive re-runs recently did 7.2, 7.3 and 6.6 millions (for 32% to 42% of the total audience).
And well, they moved it once or twice against American Idol (well our version of it) and AI just got destroyed, literraly and easily.
I just suppose that CSI do as good or even better, but I didn’t see any numbers recently.
To confirm what Andrea2 says, TF1 is being not only more and more americanised but simply proceduralized (is that even a word?). Here is what you get in a week in prime-time : Josephine and Julie Lescaut for the French productions, and… CSIs (all of them), Criminal minds, House, L&O (all of them), and French-made copies of CSIs/Criminal minds. Being aired 2 to 3 episodes at a time, it just eats all the prime-time. So yeah for procedurals !!! …
And to make it worst, TF1 buys as much interesting shows as it can, just so other networks can’t air them, and burn off the episodes randomly : Examples !
- Lost used to be on Saturday nights during the summer (2 eps @ 9PM) but I think it just vanished (I catched re-runs while drunk some days at 1AM or something).
- Heroes used to be on Saturday nights during the summer but late (3 eps @ 11PM).
- They just started Fringe, 2 episodes @11:30PM on Tuesdayys.
(I could be wrong on the hours of Lost and Heroes but it’s around those times, so you get the idea.)
So basicly, if you want quality shows/made for TV movies, you’ve got to turn to Canal+ (both French-made and imported) which means cable. Other cable networks also have interesting shows/movies but I can’t really say that since I don’t have cable anymore.
“I wonder what people posting on US ratings forums (CBS procedurals don’t usually attract many fans among this group) would say if forced to watch a Lescaut or Louis la Brocante episode!” I second that.
Maybe we have good French writers but they won’t have any opportunity to manifest. People tend to produce shows that are sure to generate ratings, rather than anything original.
So basicly I just watch less TV and end up watching shows online or torrenting them sometimes.
Oh and while I think of it, I can only think of one show that made the travel from France to the US. That would be the show that gave you Ugly Betty, and I don’t even like it… lol
Just to emphasize what Pas has already said…a perfect example is the just released TF1 schedule for the 11-17 July week:
Sat: Who wants to be millionaire? followed by Eleventh Hour (2 episodes)
Sunday: French movie followed by CSI (2 reruns)
Mon: Josephine (French series about an angel….a sort of comic version of Touched by an Angel) + Betty (3 episodes)
Tue: CSI Miami (2 new + 1 rerun) followed by Moonlight (2 new)
Wed: Criminal Minds (3 new) followed by Fringe (2 new)
Thur: RIS (French series, sort of CSI)
Friday: CSI NY (2 eps) followed by Secret Story (reality)