Launched March 31, 2005 Slogan L'esprit positif Founded 1996 Motto L'esprit positif | Owned by France Télévisions Language French Owner France Télévisions Country France | |
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Picture format 576i (SDTV)
1080i (HDTV) Audience share 1.8% (2013, Médiamétrie) TV shows It's Only TV, LoliRock, Hero Corp, Taratata, J'irai dormir chez vous Profiles | ||
France 4 ([fʁɑ̃s katʁ]) is a French public channel owned by France Télévisions, dedicated to entertainment. Originally launched as Festival, the channel took its current name in 2005, to match that of the other France Télévisions channels. The colour of France 4 is purple. It is accessible on French DTT (Télévision Numérique Terrestre (TNT)), on cable, on satellite and on IPTV.
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Festival (1996-2005)
On 24 June 1996, France Télévision established Festival, a satellite channel for the TPS satellite service, which France Télévision co-owned at the time. Festival offered a selection of films and television series, many of them previously seen on France 2, France 3 and Arte.
France 4 (2001-present)
In 2001, when the French digital terrestrial television system was in its developmental stage, the socialist government of Lionel Jospin asked the president of France Télévisions to consider a bouquet of public channels to be broadcast digitally, so that the public broadcaster could have involvement in this project. France Télévisions proposed the creation of three new channels: "France 1", "France 4" and "France 6", an all-news channel, a channel dedicated to the regions, and a channel featuring repeat broadcasts of France 2 and France 3.
Eventually, France Télévisions would have four digital channels besides France 2 and France 3, with three of them occupying existing channels: France 5 (now 24 hours a day), Arte (also 24 hours a day) and La Chaîne Parlementaire, a legislative channel owned in part by France Télévisions. France Télévisions thus only had space for one more new channel. The group eventually proposes the existing "Festival" to be the "new" channel. On October 23, 2002, the Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel authorised Festival to appear in digital. France Télévisions planned for Festival to be renamed "France 8" (as it would have been the eighth television network in France) or "France Prime", but opted instead for France 4, as the group had channels named France 2, France 3 and France 5, but until now, not "France 4" (despite the fact that Canal+ was France's fourth channel, and seen on many outlets on channel 4). The newly created France 4 proposed to present a variety of entertainment, sports, fiction, cinema and series.
Since July 2009, France 4 began broadcasting in 16:9. Since 6 October 2011, France 4 is available in high definition.