Second, the French government envisioned establishing a national broad-
cast media devoted to public service, not private profi t. Since the 1936 Popu-
lar Front government, offi cial state policy was to use its control of media to
56
c h a p t e r t h r e e
shape the evolution of France’s popular culture.16 Successive French govern-
ments before and after the Second World War engaged in a long- term cam-
paign to limit the commercialization and manage the content of broadcast
media. They erected a large, state- controlled, commercial- free broadcasting
infrastructure that dominated radio and television in France for decades. Al-
though private stations were free to do business as they saw fi t, the govern-
ment taxed their on- air advertising heavily and severely limited their trans-
mitting power.
Legal constraints hamstrung private radio stations, made radio advertis-
ing expensive for businesses, and led to a highly regionalized network of pri-
vate French broadcasters in the 1930s. These policies led to the commercial
domination of the airwaves by several powerful radio stations just outside
French borders. The most important of them was Radio Luxembourg. The
station was owned by Luxembourg’s government but managed as a for- profi t
business. Because of its enormous transmitting power, Radio Luxembourg
could broadcast commercial programming from French advertisers to most
of France despite the French government’s restrictions.
In 1937, as French government restrictions on radio advertising tightened,
Desgrange reached an agreement with station chief Louis Merlin to make
Radio Luxembourg the “offi cial” radio broadcaster of the Tour.17 Desgrange
transported Radio Luxembourg’s reporters in Tour vehicles and allowed
them special access to the riders and race organizers. That year, four stations broadcast 110 minutes of coverage each day of the Tour. Radio Luxembourg
broadcast four ten- minute updates each race day and accounted for approxi-
mately 36 percent of the Tour’s national on- air coverage in 1937.18
Desgrange introduced several innovations to the Tour’s itinerary and for-
mula that made the race more exciting and facilitated radio broadcasts. He
staged the fi rst- ever individual time trial in 1934. Time trials were well suited for real- time broadcast over the airwaves. Competitors left the starting gate
at timed intervals and in descending order according to the overall stand-
ings. The time trial accentuated the “star quality” of the famous racers since
it gave each Tour “ace” a grand moment in the spotlight. The drama and
excitement of the time trials built over the course of the day as each rider
attempted to beat the best previously posted times. Desgrange staged six in-
dividual time trials the following year. Desgrange also shortened the overall
length of the Tour after 1929 and altered the daily schedule so that the vast
majority of stages began in daylight and ended by the late afternoon. The
total length of the Tour decreased from an average of 5,467 kilometers dur-
ing the years 1919 – 29, to 4,543 kilometers during the period 1930 – 39. The
number of hours raced per day also dropped considerably. In 1929, the stages
t h e t o u r a n d t e l e v i s i o n
57
averaged 8.5 hours in length but only seven hours in 1939. While six stages
during the 1929 Tour lasted more than ten hours (including one of more than
sixteen hours), only one stage lasted more than ten hours in 1939.19 This more
compact schedule served radio journalists’ need for shorter stages that fi t easily into predetermined, regular broadcasting schedules.
The race’s growing national and international radio coverage pleased the
Tour’s publicity- hungry host towns. In Pau, which endured a sharp contrac-
tion of its tourism industry after the Great War, radio coverage of the Tour
offered the town a chance to reach new audiences. The president of Pau’s
visitor’s bureau, responding to criticisms that hosting the Tour cost the city
too much money, pointed out, “When you think about the interest generated
around the sporting world by this great international cycling competition —
and about its retransmission by all the [French] radio stations to other
countries — you understand without any diffi culty what splendid publicity it
generates for a town like ours.”20
Postwar governments played an even more prominent role in shaping
popular media. Immediately after Liberation, de Gaulle’s government reaf-
fi rmed the state’s radio monopoly and even went so far as to requisition all
private radio broadcasting stations.21 De Gaulle created a new, state- controlled entity, Radiodiffusion- Télévision Française (RTF), to run the nationwide radio and television broadcasting networks. Postwar governments perpetuated
and enhanced the offi cial, anticommercial media policies of the early radio
era. Government policy strictly forbade commercial advertising of any kind
between 1944 and 1968. By contrast, advertising- funded television arrived in
Great Britain in 1955, Italy in 1957, and West Germany in 1959.22
Paradoxically, the state’s policies established a media environment in
which commercial popular culture fl ourished. The government’s policies
spurred the reestablishment of for- profi t, French- language broadcasters in
neighboring countries. Shortly after the war, Radio Luxembourg, with the
dynamic Louis Merlin still at the helm, resumed operations. Radio Lux-
embourg competed with two other quasi- public, for- profi t stations, Ra-
dio Monte- Carlo and Sud- Radio, which broadcast from Andorra. In 1955,
Merlin established Europe No. 1, a radio- television station that broadcast
to most of Western Europe from the Saar region of southwestern Germany.
The commercial stations broadcasting from outside French borders were ex-
tremely popular: between 1948 and 1968, they gradually captured half the RTF
audience.23
Programming on for- profi t radio and television differed signifi cantly
from programming on France’s government- run stations. Parties in power
used radio and television to generate political support for themselves and
58
c h a p t e r t h r e e
their policies, such as during the anti- Communist campaigns of the late 1940s
and the Algerian crises of the mid- and late 1950s.24 French media also aimed
to cultivate and educate by exposing the French to the nation’s great intellec-
tuals.25 RTF developed serious- minded programming in which educational
programs, documentaries, theatrical dramas, interview or discussion shows,
and light entertainment such as variety shows and musical performances fi g-
ured highly.26 RTF also introduced the French to the nation’s new (and old)
generations of artists. Young singers like Jacques Brel and Georges Brassens,
as well as established entertainers like Edith Piaf and Maurice Chevalier, ap-
peared frequently on state- radio variety shows. Programming on Merlin’s
Radio Luxembourg tended toward light entertainment, game shows, and
musical spectaculars, with less emphasis on educating or cultivating its lis-
tening audience. Radio Luxembourg pioneer
ed the development in Europe
of American- style radio game shows. They tended to be brief (fi fteen min-
utes), funny, overtly commercial, and sponsored by a sole advertising client.
In one of Merlin’s biggest hits of the early 1950s, “The Talent Show” ( Le Cro-chet Radiophonique), sponsored by Dop Shampoo, audience members sang
or showcased their humorous and unusual skills. Singer-host “Zappy Max”
Doucet anointed contest winners with the catchphrase, “Dop, Dop, Dop, he’s
adopted by Dop.” A loud gong dispatched losers while Zappy Max exclaimed
his signature sendoff, “Now get out of here and wash your head, with Dop it’s
always a pleasure.”27
The groundbreaking role of the private- station news services during the
political crises of the 1950s and the growing reliance of French listeners on
them for up- to- date, accurate information and entertainment forced a reas-
sessment of the state media’s “public mission.” Merlin’s Europe No. 1 sent
special correspondents to cover breaking crises in Hungary, Suez, and Algeria
during the mid- 1950s.28 RTF, by contrast, had no correspondents in Suez or
Algeria and instead depended on communiqués sent from the fi eld by French
army offi cers for its on- site information.29 Beginning in the early 1960s, RTF
responded to the success of private stations by developing more light televi-
sion fare that appealed to popular tastes, such as game shows, comedies, and
dramatic serials. RTF relegated many of the “serious” shows to time slots in
off- peak hours.30 In 1964, the government transformed RTF into the Offi ce de la Radiodiffusion et Télévison Française (ORTF), a state- funded but quasi-independent agency, and removed direct government controls over radio
and television content.
The history of the battle over the airwaves highlights a central theme in
the development of mass culture in twentieth- century France. Beginning in
the 1930s, the French state erected formidable barriers to the encroachment
t h e t o u r a n d t e l e v i s i o n
59
of commercialism in broadcast programming that, paradoxically, spurred the
emergence of a powerful commercial broadcasting industry that succeeded
in capturing a signifi cant portion of France’s listening audience.31 In a sense, the state’s resistance to “Americanization” helped to build a cultural infrastructure in which commercialized popular culture could fl ourish. Thus, the
French state’s media policies redounded to the benefi t of enterprises, events, and spectacles that created opportunities for businesses to circumvent the
government- mandated barriers to commercialization of the media, espe-
cially in the television era. The Tour, after some hesitation, transformed itself into just such an event.
2. Transforming the Tour into a Televised Spectacle, 1949 – 1974
Jacques Goddet guided the Tour de France into the television age reluctantly.
Goddet took over the Tour directorship briefl y in 1936 when Desgrange fell
ill. The Parisian- born Goddet managed the Tour and L’Équipe for four decades after the war. In many of his wide- ranging, sports- related endeavors,
Goddet acted as a forward- thinking modernizer. The sporting world rec-
ognizes Goddet as one of the prime movers of the internationalist move-
ment in professional sport. Goddet inspired and helped organize the fi rst
European Cups in soccer and basketball in the 1950s and the fi rst World Cup
skiing championships in the 1960s. Yet his English education and sporting
background — Goddet spent part of his youth at a private school in Oxford,
where he rowed and played rugby — imbued Goddet with a traditionalism
that tempered his innovative tendencies.
These confl icted perspectives shaped how Goddet and the Tour navigated
the entry of France’s national bicycle race into the television age. At fi rst, Goddet and the other organizers feared that expanded television coverage
would erode readership of L’Équipe and Le Parisien libéré. As early as 1953, Tour organizers characterized television coverage as a mere “distraction”
compared to the press. Yet they requested that the government restrict televi-
sion broadcasts of the race in order to preserve the primacy of print journal-
ism and require state media to help pay for the event.32 Tour offi cials refused to provide television crews with adequate facilities and technical assistance.33
Prior to the 1962 Tour, the fi rst to feature corporate teams since 1929, a press consortium opposed televising the race on the grounds that transmitting images of publicity- fi lled racing jerseys would subvert the state’s prohibition on commercial advertising.34 French television responded by refusing to air
several live- broadcast stages.35 Despite these strains, Goddet and the other
organizers recognized the power of television to increase the commercial im-
60
c h a p t e r t h r e e
pact of the Tour, and they eventually encouraged the growth of television’s
coverage of the race.36
In the summer of 1949, Pierre Sabbagh, a young journalist at RTF, created
the fi rst- ever journal télévisé (televised evening news program) in Europe. To attract viewers, Sabbagh decided to make Tour coverage the centerpiece of
the fi rst weeks of his groundbreaking show. Under Sabbagh’s guidance, RTF
enacted an ambitious plan to provide viewers with daily race updates and
highlights during the journal télévisé. Sabbah had a tiny budget, “amateur”
equipment, a small crew, and an army surplus jeep. One of the reporters
food and lodging out of his own pocket.37 The fi rst journal télévisé aired on June 29, the day before the start of the Tour. Each night thereafter, France’s
tiny viewing public — only 3,794 television sets existed in the country by
1950 — watched moving images that RTF had recorded in the provinces the
previous day while on- air presenters in Paris provided live commentary.38
Throughout the early and mid- 1950s, such fi lmed material accounted for
the vast majority of race coverage that RTF broadcast on television. In 1956,
L’Équipe guessed, optimistically, that two million viewers would watch Tour highlights each evening on France’s 400,000 sets.39
Camera technology made broadcasting live, direct from the race course,
impractical on a large scale until the late 1950s. The cameras were heavy and
delicate. They could not generally be used in inclement weather and they
had to be set up at a fi xed location and connected to bulky transmitters by
cables. However, the Tour was French television’s technical laboratory, and
the techniques developed to make direct broadcasting more feasible were
later employed to televise other sports, including the 1968 Grenoble Winter
Olympics.40 For the Tour, technicians developed mobile cameras that beamed
pictures wirelessly to stationary transmitters; employed cameras with zoom
lenses, some mounted on helicopters, to follow the race action more closely;
and developed lightweight, color cameras for use during the competition.41
As technology improved, RTF transmitted more and more race coverage,
much of it direct from the course, to France’s burgeoning television audience.
By 1966, R.T.F’s total air time devoted to the Tour amounted to twenty- one
hours
and eleven minutes, and live, on- site broadcasts accounted for more
than thirteen hours of the total. In 1970, the total air time for Tour coverage rose to twenty- eight hours and twenty- four minutes, of which live transmissions accounted for more than twenty- three hours.42
French television devoted more and more personnel and fi nancial re-
sources to covering the Tour in the late 1950s and 1960s as R.T.F’s manage-
ment diversifi ed the state network’s programming. French television’s Tour
t h e t o u r a n d t e l e v i s i o n
61
crew grew from eleven to twenty members between 1952 and 1956. By 1960,
the RTF Tour crew’s size had more than quadrupled to include ninety jour-
nalists and technicians, thirteen cars, two busses, two equipment trucks, a
helicopter, a jeep, and a radio- equipped motorcycle.43
Few exact estimates of the Tour’s television audience in the 1960s and
1970s exist. The percentage of television- equipped households in France rose
from 9 to 80 percent between 1958 and 1974.44 A Goddet- commissioned sur-
vey of the event’s broadcast audience in 1973 concluded that close to twenty
million French viewers tuned in to television coverage of the race.45 By 1980,
according to Tour offi cials’ estimates, the race’s television audience dwarfed the estimated twelve million roadside spectators and international retransmissions of coverage reached approximately thirty million viewers in other
countries.46
The transformation of the Tour into a televised spectacle illustrates how
the audio- visual media forged for themselves a powerful place in postwar
popular culture. The popularity of televised sport in France undoubtedly
helped the new medium to fl ourish and to gain acceptance.47 The expansion
of television viewership in France had profound, unanticipated ramifi cations.
Television viewing began to replace traditional leisure activities and social
traditions. In his ethnohistory of a provincial village that he visited in 1951
and in 1959, Laurence Wylie documented how television began to erode long-
standing modes of sociability after the war. As more of the local residents
purchased televisions, the village’s social life began to change. One farmer,
whom Wylie described as a fi xture at the village’s weekly boules tournament in 1951, explained in 1959 that he had stopped competing on Sundays because