French TV frequencies change

If you watch French TV via your aerial (ie not via on-line services) you may find that you cannot see your favourite channels. This is because some local frequencies have changed from today. Simply re-tune your TV or digital decoder to restore the channels.

A message from Hans re French TV changes

Today I got a paper in my letterbox telling me that there will be a change in the frequencies for the TNT reception (French channels, received with an aerial – rateau) on the 6^th November 2018. This change doesn’t apply to people who have the French channels via Internet or via satellite.

I did some checking on this and it appears that most of the people in the area are not affected. The main transmitters on Pic-du-Midi and Toulouse have changed already a year ago and most of the people in this area are using these transmitters. The local transmitters of St Antonin Noble Val and Caylus also have been changed already. But who then are affected?

The change applies to people who are using the local transmitters of Lexos and Laguépie (called Varen1 and Varen2). And also to those who are using the transmitters of Carcassonne, Cordes sur Ciel and Albi.

So what to do if you suddenly are missing some of the French TV channels on your TV on the 6^th November? Just do a new search for the French TV channels on your TV. And probably after that you will find everything back as it was before.

Hans, VIDEPC

Local TV news to cease

Readers who regularly watch the local news bulletins on France 3 (generally 19.20 in the evening) with Tarn and Quercy-Rouergue editions may be losing these bulletins from next year. France TV says it will integrate the news into the regional bulletins (Occitanie Midi Pyrenees) and on-line. We UK expats regularly watch BBC local editions and it is noticeable how much more there is of local news, weather and traffic info than on the French equivalents. And the quality of the programmes is infinitely better, presumably because the BBC and ITV spend much more of their budgets on local programming.
Taglines picks a lot of its local stories from France 3 and we will be sorry to lose the rather endearing amateurishness of France 3 Tarn news. Perhaps more local broadcasting should be considered; we in T&G rely on Tarn or Quercy-Rouergue, neither being ideal.
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Last news at 8

David Pujadas

We have covered the France 2 News at Eight presenter David Pujadas because he owns a family house in Najac. But to French viewers he has the gravitas of a Huw Edwards or even David Dimbleby on election nights. But last night (Thursday 8th June) was the last appearance of M Pujadas on the flagship news programme.
There is a renewal of personnel at France TV with the flagship breakfast presenter also retiring at the start of the summer holidays. William Leymergie has presented Telematin for 32 years, but at 70 is now leaving, though he will join a news channel called C8.

The changes will mark a new direction for France 2, though management is at pains to point out that the spirit of the programmes will remain.
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Do you watch French TV?

If not, you will miss some things, such as local news and weather, some sport and excellent documentaries; if you do tune in you could lose everything on April 5th.
On that date all transmissions will switch to high definition (HD) and some TV sets or decoders will not receive them. Most TV sets we expats use will receive HD transmissions as many of the chains transmitted by Sky or Freesat are in HD. But if you still use an old decoder or TV you may not receive French TV at all if you receive it via a rooftop aerial. Most new TVs (say less than 5 years old) are HD compatible so you will just need to retune. The TV we have in our gite, for example, is too old to receive HD broadcasts so if we have French tenants we would need to up-grade.
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Rugbygirls

We are used to that strange non-English French word "rugbymen" which describes men who play rugby. But the Toulouse Ovalie XIII club has a thriving feminine branch, whose team plays at the highest female level. Tonight a documentary (XIII filles en Ovalie)  will be shown on France 3, sadly about midnight (repeated tomorrow at 8.50 am) charting the growth of the team and their enjoyment and solidarity in the game considered quintessentially male.

Cinergie Productions

Rugby league, as we know it, is played with 13 rather than 15 players (hence its French name - rugby à XIII) and is faster and more open, with fewer stoppages for scrums and line-outs, than Rugby Union. There are some dinosaur readers who consider that games such as football, cricket and rugby should not be played by women, but the levels attained and enjoyment gained show that women are quite capable of playing these "unlady-like" games.
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Worth catching up if you missed it

Last night (Wednesday 14 October) France 3 TV's flagship programme, Des Racines et des Ailes, presented a 90 minute trip down the river Tarn. Starting way up in the Massif Central the film accompanied various architects and conservation experts looking at the different aspects the river reveals.
The high Tarn has superb wild canoeing through the wonderful Gorges du Tarn; various communities and individuals were seen restoring the built heritage of their villages; the history of the bridges, including the metal constructions we see in so many of our villages; the magnificent Millau bridge; the Vieux Pont in Albi. Plus how the caves of Roquefort are a natural refrigerator to need no air conditioning to produce the characteristic blue cheese.
There were wonderful close up views of Albi Cathedral (and how remains of its predecessor were found in a private home) as well as trips around other Tarn villages, ending at Moissac and its delicious Chasselas grapes.
If you want to see it, it is available on catch-up TV Pluzz.
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20h50 (8.50pm) this evening.

France 3's "Des Racines et des Ailes" is this evening tracing part of the Aveyron valley's route.
History and views of Conques, Villefranche de Rouergue, Sauveterre de Rouergue.
This is one of France TV's best programmes. We have set our box to record it - but will try to watch.
It will probably be available on "catch up" TV via Pluzz.
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French TV - is it worth watching?

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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We want St. Antonin, We want St. Antonin to win

 The TV programme Le Village Préferé des Français presented by Stephane Bern invites viewers to choose their favourite village from a selection from each of France's 22 regions. Won last year by Cordes sur Ciel this year St Antonin has been chosen to represent Midi Pyrenees.  Filming is scheduled for 8/9th April with the programmes aired later in the year and the final at the end of June. You can vote via a web site and the village with the most votes will win. St Cirq Lapopie also won for this region a few years back and villages, hence local businesses often benefit greatly from this. The village needs your vote to win, so watch this space for more details "au fur et à mesure"

bonjour

St Antonin Noble Val vient d’être sélectionné pour représenter la Région Midi Pyrénées dans l’émission produite par France 2

« LE VILLAGE PREFERE DES FRANÇAIS »

 présentée par le célèbre Stéphane  BERN ; cette émission sera diffusée au plan national fin Juin.

 Entre temps aura eu lieu le tournage les 8 et 9 Avril.

Le principe est le suivant :

 Les vingt deux régions sont représentées par un village. Une succession d’émissions mettront en valeur ces mêmes villages entre Avril et Juin.

 De la mi Avril à la mi Mai (les dates ne sont pas encore arrêtées)  les téléspectateurs voteront sur le site internet de l’émission mis à leur disposition. Le village qui recueillera le plus de voix sera celui qui l’emportera bien entendu

 Pour mémoire, sur les trois dernières saisons, deux villages Midi Pyrénéens ont gagné : St CIRQ LA POPIE et CORDES

 Un véritable coup de pouce pour la notoriété de notre cité.

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The Lot or Wolf Hall?

Tonight's TV presents a dilemma: on France 3 at 8.50pm (20h50) is Des Racines et des Ailes, a normally unmissable transmission but especially so this week as it follows a 2 hour journey along the river Lot. The countryside, the towns, the history, often shot from one of the controversial drones that are so prevalent now, all under the eye of local historian the appropriately named Georges Lot.
We will have to record Wolf Hall as we cannot yet be sure we can record France 3.
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Replay TV

Hello Val and Malc,French TV addicts
It is possible to use a program called Captvty which is available from (http://captvty.fr/)  to download French TV programmes to view on a computer.  When captvty is started it will list the available programs for download for each station, you can order on date aired or program type culture, sport etc. If a particular program is not visible there is an option to put that URL into the search function of Captvty and it will find the program if it is available.  There is also a facility to record live programs and even set up a future recording from the built in TV Guide. 
As it is for French TV then the program only supports French language but it is quite intuitive to use, it might even make French TV interesting.
Happy Viewing

Neville

Hi back Val,

I tried the link again and yes it has changed.  But I found this link.  Just scroll down and you'll see the video.

http://aquitaine.france3.fr/emissions/cap-sud-ouest/actu/tarn-et-garonne-causses-et-gorges-du-quercy-samedi-19-avril-19h.html

Ali

Hi again,

I also became friend with the show on facebook and here's a link to all the shows.

http://aquitaine.france3.fr/emissions/cap-sud-ouest

 

Malc says: the last two certainly work so we will be looking at the programme soon. You can also download a Pluzz TV app to do most of what Nev says above with Captvty, but to use a simple "iPlayer" like system is difficult as most programmes are only available for 7 days. But it seems there are ways round this (legitimately).

So we are looking forward to seeing "Causses et Gorges de l'Aveyron"

 

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Techie thing

Wanting to watch the Laguepie programme we missed we decided to try via BBC iPlayer. Some of you know how all this is done, so look away now (or suggest something easier).
iPlayer is not available to most of us either via our satellite box or computer because the Beeb knows we are not in the UK and there are problems with broadcasting rights. So you need a VPN (virtual private network). This you download to your computer from the internet. We use Expat Shield (google it). Once you connect to it, it assigns an internet address that looks like a UK address and so fools the Beeb into allowing you to access iPlayer.
Having done this we found that our internet connection was too slow to "stream" the programme, which kept stopping to "buffer" and eventually gave up, telling us we had insufficient "bandwidth".
But iPlayer suggested we install the iPlayer Download app and then download the programme to be watched later without problems. So we did that and hey presto, "escape to the continent" was there to be watched at leisure. Many iPlayer programmes are now available for 30 days.
Please note that in an earlier post it was advised that you only use a VPN for these purposes and disconnect it for normal internet use.
Unfortunately the French programme "Causses et Gorges de L'Aveyron" on France 3 catch-up was only there for 7 days and gone by the time we wanted to look yesterday evening - nor does there appear to be a download facility to keep the programme for later.
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French TV -how to get it (and is it worth it?)

Posts often mention something we saw on Telematin or some other news or programme on the French language chains and one or two readers have asked how you get them.
If you have Sky there may be some programmes there, but if not then many programmes are available free to air and in HD. If your TV set is relatively new it will have a decoder built in to receive the digital broadcasts (all broadcasts have been digital for the last couple of years or so). If your TV is older you may need to buy a TNT (television numerique terrestrial) decoder, but these can be found for well under 100 euros. Then you will need an aerial as it is exactly the same as UK freeview.
Just plug the TV or decoder into the aerial and hey presto, a choice of about 50 TNT stations can be installed. These include France Televisions  (like the BBC), TF1 (like ITV), some news stations and children's programmes. Especially good is Arte, a Franco-German station.
A wider choice of subscription channels, including films and sport (a la Sky) is available via Canal+. This mainly would need a Canal+ decoder, a parabole (dish) and a monthly subscription. Also most telephone operators offer a TV choice with a subscription, but again a dish may be needed as few of us have enough bandwidth to watch via our livebox or whatever.
For local news only France 3 offers daily emissions at noon and 7pm, and local for us is Midi Pyrenees and Tarn; some readers may get other areas.
For learning and improving your French it is very useful indeed, especially if the programmes are subtitled, though there is just as much rubbish as on UK TV!
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PS some of our advertisers are able to help you with installation and set up.