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More than just a screen, television has marked history. A look back at its evolution since its beginnings.
©️Gallica - BnF
This might be your case, during lockdown, the French spent between 4h30 and 5h per day in front of the TV, record figures according to Médiamétrie while they had been constantly declining for years. While television is much more than a set intended to emit and receive audiovisual sequences, let's look back at the history of the small screen since its beginnings.
At the beginning, Paul Nipkow's electric telescope in 1884 and Karl Braun's cathode-ray tube in 1897. The use of electricity allowed many engineers to successively develop a machine that resembles our current television. It was on the screen of the mechanical television that the first animated images were transmitted in 1926. In parallel, in 1927, the first electronic television system was born. It is the ancestor of our modern televisions.
Television arrived in France in 1935 in public places. People saw actors reading poems. But World War II slowed down the broadcast on sets, even though there were only 300 TV sets in the country.
After the war, the first women's TV magazine, La Femme chez elle, was broadcast, initiated by Maïté Célerier de Sanois, a writer for Marie-Claire. Later, in 1949, programs were presented by two speakerines, Jacqueline Joubert and Arlette Accard; and the first TV news was presented by Pierre Sabbagh.
Color television did not arrive immediately. Although several television systems were found in patents in 1904 and 1925, we had to wait until the 1950s in the United States to see colored images. The Vietnam War was, moreover, the first conflict broadcast in color...
With Koh Lanta, Affaire Conclue, or Les Marseillais, one of the primary functions of television is to entertain us. Popular entertainment shows have always had an important place on our screens.
The first entertainment show, 36 chandelles, presented by Jean Nohain, was broadcast in 1953. Artists like Fernandel, Louis Mariano, or Annie Cordy appeared live in this show. As for the first TV game, Télé Match, it entertained us by asking questions and puzzles to contestants, including the famous game Head and Legs.
Maybe you also remember La Caméra invisible, Le Grand Echiquier, Le Petit Rapporteur, or Champs-Elysées?
Movies and TV movies have occupied a large place in the rankings of the best audiences since 1992. Only popular shows like Miss France, the Enfoirés concerts, or the Star Academy finals stand out among the entertainment.
We had to wait until 2001 for viewers to discover the first reality TV show, Loft Story. Followed closely by Koh Lanta, the same year.
However, in the ranking of the 20 most watched TV content in France, we find sports from the 1st to the 19th place (World Cup, Euro, European Cup)! It is the 1998 World Cup final that was the most watched show with 23,647,000 viewers...
Only the entertainment show Le Grand Bluff (TF1) on December 26, 1992, placed itself in the ranking with 17.4 million viewers. By comparison, Emmanuel Macron's speech on confinement measures to fight the coronavirus brought together more than 36 million French people (on 11 different channels).