June 14–21, 2001

loose canon

TV à la Française

by Bruce Schimmel

American commercial television is not dying, though it is turning itself into an infomercial. This is not such a startling observation in itself, until one realizes how quickly the transformation is happening.

Up close, the everyday consumer of the five American commercial outlets might not notice the shift. It’s just a minute or so more of commercials per hour, a couple more product placements, a few more characters living on no apparent means but who still consume with offhanded lavishness.

But from afar, the changes are stark, or were for me when I was recently held captive in an apartment in Paris and watched a lot of French daytime television. I was held captive by an FOU, a Fever of Unknown Origin, the UFO of modern medicine. But that’s another story.

First off, my television set in France had no remote control, which would have been a real nuisance in America, where most of us surf from channel to channel to avoid commercials. But there’s no need to zap ads in France, even on commercial stations, because instead of interrupting the program, the advertising comes in a solid block at the end. It’s a bit like PBS.

This, alone, creates some fundamental differences in how programs are produced and viewed. American television is becoming increasingly telegraphic: a few snappy lines are set in a montage of jump cuts. Even the best of commercial programs, like Frasier or Seinfeld or Law & Order, never move much beyond wit and wordplay because they don’t have the time to engage our attention. In fact, a mystery format like Law and Order works because viewers tend to overlook critical details in trying to keep up with the quick pace.

The pace of French television is, by contrast, leisurely. Slow, by American standards, but richer in content. Can you imagine an hourlong documentary on daytime American TV about the archaeological evidence of global warming? Or how about a news show of independent producers chronicling the work of meteorologists in remote outposts, or detailing the lives of artisanal cheesemakers?

Sounds a little hokey, doesn’t it? But it’s not, not when program producers have the time to do a full, panoramic view, and not just do a series of rushed close-ups.

I get sick, literally, watching American commercial television. The quick pace, the fast chatter, the disorienting dissolves give me the same kind of vertigo, the nervous nausea that many people get in a busy shopping mall.

But watching French TV, even with a fever, I felt soothed and satisfied, much like the feeling after a good French meal.