Commercial Tv, Mon Dieu!

By Richard Zoglin

The evening began with a lavish, four-hour variety show, complete with glittery set, tuxedoed host and a parade of guest stars. Singer Charles Aznavour cut a ribbon to mark the occasion, and Rudolf Nureyev, Sting and ABC Newsman Peter Jennings were among the celebrities who sent greetings from abroad. Then it was on to regular programming: an onslaught of game shows, movies and weekly series, interrupted regularly by -- mon Dieu! -- commercials.

To American viewers, it might have looked like a routine week of programming. But in France, the debut of La Cinq (Channel 5), the nation's first privately owned non-cable network, marked the start of a new broadcasting era. La Cinq's Feb. 20 launch was followed last week by the official premiere of La Six, an MTV-style rock-music channel. With a seventh channel that will present cultural programs planned for later this year, the TV picture in France has never been so lively or diverse. Yet the new offerings have sparked a heated debate. Political opponents of the Socialist government denounced the process by which the new channels were created as "completely scandalous." Cultural leaders, meanwhile, warned that the expected influx of foreign-produced shows, many of them from the U.S., amounted to nothing less than "a state crime against culture."

Similar changes in the TV scene, if not arousing quite the same fury, are common sights across Europe these days. Established government-owned -- and frequently dull -- networks are facing a feisty new array of commercial competitors. In Italy the state-owned RAI-TV has been joined by three popular networks run by TV Magnate Silvio Berlusconi, who is also part owner of La Cinq. In West Germany, the government is spending an estimated $10 billion to wire the nation for cable (which is already widespread in countries like Belgium and Holland). German cable viewers can choose from such new channels as the Luxembourg-based RTL-Plus and SAT 1, run by a consortium of German publishers. Meanwhile, the skies over Europe are becoming crowded with new satellite services, among them Rupert Murdoch's Sky Channel, which reaches an estimated 5.5 million homes with reruns of The Lucy Show and The Untouchables as well as entertainment shows produced in Britain and on the Continent.

In France as in most other European countries, state-owned TV has traditionally been stodgy and unimaginative, at least by U.S. standards. The three channels run by the French government offer a lineup of news, highbrow talk shows and inexpensively produced entertainment, along with occasional U.S. imports like Dallas and Dynasty. When Socialist President Francois Mitterrand came to power in 1981, however, he pledged to make the airwaves more independent. The upshot was a proliferation of privately owned FM radio stations and, in 1984, a new national pay-TV channel, Canal Plus.

Last November the government awarded the franchise for a fifth channel to a group headed by Berlusconi and two French businessmen with ties to President Mitterrand. Opposition leaders charged that the new channel would have a pro- Socialist bias and that it was being rushed on the air to beat the March 16 legislative elections, which the Socialists are in danger of losing. Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac, a leading Mitterrand foe, even tried to thwart the channel's start-up by closing access to the top of the Eiffel Tower, where technicians were about to install an antenna. Government officials stepped in to have it reopened.

The cultural community, meanwhile, warned that La Cinq's predominantly foreign-made fare would lower standards and squeeze out indigenous programming. French filmmakers were upset that movies shown on La Cinq would be interrupted by commercials (ads on government channels are bunched at the beginning and end of programs). "I find it disgraceful," said Director Bertrand Tavernier (A Sunday in the Country), "that a government which was supported by creative people is in the process of stabbing them in the back."

The object of much of this wrath is Berlusconi, 49, who is making his first venture into French television. A self-made millionaire in real estate before he was 40, Berlusconi started buying Italian TV stations in 1978 and soon linked them into nationwide networks, with schedules heavily laced with game shows and U.S. movies and series. Though private TV networks are officially banned in Italy, a government edict allowed Berlusconi's popular channels to continue.

La Cinq's programming is following Berlusconi's successful formula, with several Italian-produced game shows, movies like Saturday Night Fever and such U.S. series as Flamingo Road and Murder, She Wrote. Berlusconi insists that La Cinq "will bring in new blood and raise the level of professionalism on all the other networks." Though opening night drew mixed reviews ("Clumsy," declared Liberation, an independent Paris daily), ratings were good: an estimated 62% of the Paris audience watched at least one minute of the programming.

All this activity has been a boon to at least one group in the U.S.: Hollywood distributors. The new competition will almost certainly drive up prices for U.S. shows on the international market. Says MGM-TV President Lawrence Gershman of the anticipated bidding wars: "It's going to be terrific." French viewers will wait a bit longer before deciding whether they agree.

With reporting by Walter Galling/Rome and Adam Zagorin/Paris