Paul from Paris

Advertisements for the Citroën DS3 are all over France, especially over the airwaves in the evening.

Citroën has two spots. Both show a talking celebrity before the “anti-retro” tagline and visuals of the automobile. One spot features John Lennon, the other shows Marilyn Monroe.

There’s been lots of press coverage on the use of the celebrities’ likeness, but three other points caught my attention:

• The audio track doesn’t match the visuals. I first wondered whether this was just a dubbing problem. (In France, the spots are in English, with French subtitles.) But I couldn’t imagine Monroe saying “you should create your own icons” –people didn’t talk like that 50 years ago– and the footage of Lennon, talking about “nostalgia for the ’60s and ’70s”, looks as though it predates 1970. The spoken words turn out to be a pure fiction, paired with real visuals. I’m not comfortable with putting words in people’s mouths.
• If the anti-retro tagline has a meaning, it’s lost on me. Monroe and Lennon are figures from the past. The Citroën DS3 looks, to my eyes, much like the Mini, a classic car.
• Monroe and Lennon both died unfortunate deaths, at a young(ish) age. I know this and can’t help but think of it whenever I see Monroe or Lennon. It’s a sad and serious thought. It does not make me want to go out and buy or look at a new car.

France subsidizes and protects its media. Is this a bad thing? Taking two American films as a guide, I think the answer is, “not in the way you might have thought”.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon, opened concurrently in France and in the USA. (It opened wide in France on Wednesday, and in the USA on Friday.) In its opening week in the US, the picture took in $142.8 million at the box office. In France, the picture was seen by 2,318,559 moviegoers in its first week. (American statistics look at cash receipts; French statistics look at the number of tickets sold.)

On both sides of the Atlantic, New Moon is a tremendous success. The story I’m eager to hear is how the producers (or distributors) built up so much interest to swarm theaters on opening day. I suspect this story will read as a case study for a “flatter Earth”.

In France, the first Twilight picture sold 2,772,499 tickets in its entire theatrical release; a respectable showing, but a world part from the New Moon wave. Something happened to turn a success into a social phenomenon.

Also in France, I suspect that critics have been too hasty to brand the interest in the picture as the exclusive preserve of female teens. I find that awareness of the picture nears 100%, and moviegoers include males and females of all ages.

New Moon remains more an exception than the rule. The French market is heavily regulated, with all sorts of exhibition windows written into law. Video can follow theatrical release by 4 months. But a pay TV window opens 10 months after theatrical release, and free TV only 22 months after theatrical release. Free VOD is tolerated only 4 years after theatrical release.

The observant reader will have noted that the key date is the French theatrical release. Here arises a huge problem: the French theatrical release often trails the US (or other home market release) by a long time.

To demonstrate this point, I picked a random film doing well in American theatrical release: “Couples Retreat”, a comedy with Vince Vaughn. This picture opened in the US on October 9. It opened in the UK on October 14. But it hasn’t opened in France yet. It won’t, until March 10, 2010. What does the French distributor gain from such a delay?

For this picture, there’s no compelling reason to synchronize the US and French releases. But all sorts of perverse effects follow from the French delay: I’ll be able to watch this picture on an airplane before I can see it in a theater in France; the American DVD will be released (and promoted) well before the French version; and French VOD viewers will be tempted to access this picture from the US, simply because the French version will not be on the market.

A few years ago, when CNN was The Next Big Thing, French media organizations vowed to put into place all-news channels, in the French style.

Today, French news channels include: France 24, iTélé, LCI, and BFM.

Now, after Hulu (an advertiser-supported streaming video service available to viewers without charge) made an impressive début in the USA, French broadcasters vow to put into place a French-style Hulu. This is a bad idea:

• The French seem to think of Hulu only as a time-shifting device. This is wrong: Hulu is not an online VCR that lets you watch yesterday’s program tomorrow. The French are setting the bar too low.
• The French claim to want to “compete” with Hulu. Competition in this case would require an alliance between all the French broadcasters that aren’t state-owned. More than competition, it sounds to me like French broadcasters want to block Hulu.
• French broadcasters see their service as a conduit that would supplement or extend their existing program delivery business. But Hulu (or TV.com) is about content, with an impressive library made available to viewers online.

As a French resident, I’ll rejoice when territorial barriers begin to fall and English-language (or original-language) programming becomes more easily available.

Once upon a time, it wasn’t easy to find an English-language book in Paris (just as it wasn’t easy to find a French-language book in the US). In the days before Internet access, I was partial to the Galignani bookshop. It always impressed me as worldly and sophisticated, with a deep selection of fine arts books, as well as a generalist collection of quality books in French and in English. The store was happy to place single-copy orders for me; the books arrived after several weeks and cost me more than their list price.

Today, this has changed, thanks to amazon.com. I’m now able to get English-language titles quickly and with a choice between English and American editions. Amazon.com has a base in Europe, so I don’t have to worry about customs duties (and delays) or egregious postal (sur)charges (and delays).

Recorded music followed different rules. Because of territorial distribution arrangements, some titles that were easy to find (and inexpensive) in the US were available only as high-priced, hard-to-find imports in France. Online retailers like amazon.com helped ease supply and lessen price differentials, but less than is the case for books. And online retailers like iTunes sometimes can’t deliver: because of territorial distribution arrangements, some songs or albums aren’t available in the French “store”.

Territorial distribution arrangements are even more restrictive for other forms of entertainment, such as movies and television programs. In Paris, where I live, American movies are usually shown in English, subtitled in French. I know that subtitling takes time. But distributors are capable of releasing a subtitled (or dubbed) movie at the same time as its US release. Usually the lag between a US and a French opening is driven by choices of a French distributor, and usually these choices lead to a French opening months after an American release. (Two exceptions are Woody Allen and James Bond pictures, both of which seem to come out in France before their US release.) Because of exploitation “windows”, this delay slows the eventual video release of American pictures in the French market.

The lag and its consequences is even more pronounced for television programs. I’m American, so I have a particular appetite for programming in English; I don’t want or need subtitles, much less dubbing. Thanks to video streaming, content producers could satisfy my demand. I’d be willing to pay for a download or even one-time streamed video; I would also accept commercial breaks. And my consumption of content in this way would not cannibalize from French broadcasters or cable channels: I don’t watch much French TV, especially American programming dubbed into French. A broadcaster can’t lose a pair of eyeballs it never had to begin with.

Unfortunately for me (and others like me), sources of television programming enforce territorial restrictions strictly. iTunes won’t let me download the programs I want, simply because my bank happens to be in France. Streaming services like Hulu are, for now, limited to the US.

I have guarded hope for the future when I read comments such Disney CEO Richard Iger’s to the Financial Times: “the business model that underpins the movie business is changing”.

French television journalist Mélissa Theuriau gets a lot of attention.

She's pretty and photogenic, so much so that she has a cult following. Google her name, and you'll come up with all sorts of images and fan sites. Look her up on YouTube, and you'll come up with clips of her reporting or anchoring.

Theuriau's fame climbed even higher when she wed Jamel Debbouze, a popular French comic actor. Theuriau had a child last December, and took time off from her television work.

She returned as anchor of a prime-time Sunday evening show, Zone interdite, on 30 August. For American viewers, Zone interdite bears a resemblance to 60 Minutes, with an emphasis on investigative pieces.

The 30 August episode focused on crime and police in France. After a package on crime on the Riviera, "La côte d'Azur sous haute surveillance", Theuriau interviewed Brice Hortefeux, the French Interior Minister and commander in chief of French police. The network that broadcasts Zone interdite has made available a video excerpt of the interview. (No need to speak French; the body language speaks volumes.)

Hortefeux is no Mélissa Theuriau. He's not photogenic. He's stiff and talks like a bureaucrat. He's not really ready for prime time. Even though 4.1 million viewers tuned in to Zone interdite (peaking at 5.3 million around 10:30pm), Hortefeux's interview was hardly memorable and probably would soon have been forgotten.

Then entered Alliance, a police union. In an open letter, its secretary general complained that Hortefeux suffered "extremely aggressive behavior" from Theuriau, whom he described as "blinded by an open hatred of the police." The network that produces Zone interdite sent a reply, supporting its journalist but otherwise backing off from confrontation (while using bad syntax). The exchange was widely reported by the French press.

Theuriau seems to have stood on the sidelines. Back from maternity leave, she now passes for a hard-hitting journalist, and millions have been reminded of the show she anchors.

As for Hortefeux, after letting pass a chance to shine, his ostensible ally, the police union, seems to offer an example of the worst said against the police: twisting facts, siding reflexively with authority figures, being hard on women and minorities. All of which does a disservice to Hortefeux.