France 24

France 24 (originally known by the catchy title Chaine Française d'Information Internationale) is "apparently" set for a Dec '06 launch. Should be interesting to see how the incumbents cope with the added competition of al-Jazeera International and France 24.

It's hard to find much information on this channel, Wikipedia and this seemingly good blog say different things - eg according to Wikipedia and The Telegraph the channel will initially broadcast 20hrs French content and 4hrs English language content, the blog on the other hand says there will be two seperate French and English channels, so who knows! Interestingly the newsroom/studio will be a street-level-window affair a la American breakfast television. Hopefully the French are more well behaved than those who stand outside Fox and Friends. What do people think?

Catchy title but I doubt catchy programming. The need to satisfy the entire French TV landscape with this state funded channel means an uneasy collaberation between different broadcasters with different ideas. I reckon the result will be pretty messy.

And very French- after all why else would the French government be funding it?

There should definitely be some spread betting on how long into "France 24"'s broadcasting it has to be shut down due to industrial action.

I'm taking 2-3 weeks.

doubt it will be that competitive...DWTV cannot be compared to BBC World or CNN can it?

The Guardian has provided further info on the new channel, looks like it will be on Sky after all. Whether it will be with the main news channels or lost in the wilderness of foreign channels waits to be seen...

So where does this leave LCI ? Presumably it will stay "domestic" (a la BBC News 24) while France 24 will be global (a la BBC World)?

Bozz

After Checking France 24's Press Conference, France 24 Will have to channels : One in French, and the other, in English.

LCI is just the 24 hours rolling News Channel in France..
So, LCI will stay. (Like the others like BFM TV, I>TELE ...)

Hope it helps a bit.

Florian, Paris.

And you can see the logo here..
http://www.idtv.fr/

Will the english channel be launching in america?

Why ,are you on an extended holiday there?

No, as I stated, I am an Irish national living in america, aoon to be moving in the next few months, and I was just wondering, will it be in the US or not. It doesn't matter for me, because it probaly won't launch till I leave. It was just out of curiosity.

Apparently, based on BBC World's decade of effort to enter the US, the channel aims to only broadcast in 'key' US locations - ie NY for the UN and Washington DC for The White House. An odd, and slightly conceited, decision.

France 24 is now testing off the Sky EPG.

Tests can be viewed at 12.560 H under the label "53281".

The last time I checked, the tests were showing a promo video on a loop without sound. Now & Next EPG data is also active.

France 24 is launching on the Internet on Wednesday 6th December and then launching on satellite two days later....