Philippe Vandel with Alexis Patri
Many viewers have written to the Superior Audiovisual Council (CSA) to complain that the first part of the evening (the famous prime time) shows often start late on the announced schedule. The French audiovisual regulatory authority has conducted a study on the subject.
Series, entertainment show, investigative investigation, football game or presidential interview, the most anticipated and watched programs are all early evening. Prime times announced for a long time for 8:50 p.m., and more often for 9:05 p.m. today. But this schedule is not always respected. To the point that many viewers get annoyed and have decided to write to the Superior Audiovisual Council (CSA). The authority carried out a study to verify the reality of these delays.
Does French television show “recurring delays with regard to the schedules announced in the press and on” Internet? The CSA scrutinized the programs of the third week of September 2021. It noted an average delay of nearly 4 minutes on all the channels. And five of them are over 5 minutes late. The worst performers are the TF1 and TMC channels. They blow up the counters more than 7 minutes late.
No legal framework on broadcast schedules
Europe 1 watched the departure of the premiums from these two channels on Wednesday, the evening which followed the publication of the CSA study. Direct effect, the show with Emmanuel Macron on TF1 started with “only” 3 minutes 50 late. But, on the side of TMC, the replay of Burger Quiz on TMC started 6 minutes 27 late, despite the joke of media journalist Julien Bellver to presenter Yann Barthès on the set of Day-to-day. It is this program that regularly makes the air late, just before the start of TMC’s prime time.
The CSA specifies that “the legal framework of the audio-visual one does not impose a precise timetable for the programs of television” and that “the chains are thus free to compose their grid as they wish it”. But it also specifies that the chains must respect the schedules which they announced to the television programs.