Of course it's useful to help with the language - especially the news and some subtitled programmes. But the quality is generally thought to be abysmal. France is the only western European country whose viewing figures consistently show dubbed American series at the top. TF1, the ITV of France, is certainly dominated by such series and France 2 and France 3 are losing viewers steadily (France 3 down by 41% in 10 years). World wide sales of French made programmes amounted to 125 million euros per annum for the last 15 years, whereas the BBC has sales of 1.3 billion euros for original English made programmes.
Of course English language programmes have a potentially bigger audience, but the lack of appeal of French programmes is not just in their language. French viewers are voting with their remote controls and preferring internet based content, often from the rest of the world, as well as minor channels showing films and documentaries.
With very few honourable exceptions (mainly documentaries) French TV is the usual mixture of game shows, American or British series, talking heads and truly awful "variety" shows. With such a history of fine film making (and cinema audiences continue to grow) you would think that producers and directors would be working for TV - or is it simply infra dig?
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