Out-of-touch Television? The Presidential Election and the Persistence of Prime-time Political Debate Programmes in France

Abstract

For some considerable time, prime-time television debate programmes have been under threat from commercialisation of broadcasting, voter apathy, the rise of infotainment, and competition from new media technologies. In spite of this, in 2012 the two main terrestrial channels once again produced new, lengthy, prime-time programmes designed especially for the presidential campaign. The aim of this article is to examine the role played by these programmes in a changed media landscape and to seek to explain the survival of the genre. It is argued that it is their conservative nature, combined with a modicum of ‘modernisation’, which enables them to occupy a strategic position within the spectrum of media outlets. While assessing their impact on the electoral outcome is a precarious business, it is clear that in 2012 they have contributed to a reversal in the fortunes and status of the two main channels, TF1 and F2.