May 03, 2001 08:17am
Sophisticated France Finds Taste for 'Trash TV'
Source: Reuters
by: Crispian Balmer
(PARIS) -- A titillating reality television show has revealed that France has just as much as appetite for ``Trash TV'' as the rest of the world.
While France's artistic elite pulls out its hair in dismay at the new erotically charged fly-on-the-wall series ``Loft Story,'' millions of ordinary viewers cannot get enough of the poolside frolics of the show's 11 captives.
So-called reality TV swept Europe last year with various national versions of the hit show ``Big Brother,'' where people lived together in a sealed house and compound with cameras watching their every move before they were voted out.
The genre drew tuts of disapproval from Paris intellectuals who hailed France's cultural identity and doubted whether the sophisticated French market would buy what they branded ''fast-food TV,'' or ``pig brother.''
And for a while it appeared that national television would steer well clear, until last week, when the commercial channel M6 launched Loft Story.
A very French take on Big Brother, the show will see successive male and female participants eliminated by the voting public over the space of 70 days until one couple is left. They will then have to live together for six months in a house worth three million francs ($407,200) to win it.
The tone of the show was rapidly set last weekend when Jean-Edouard, the pretty-boy of the group, had a late-night naked romp with go-go dancer Loana in the compound pool.
Although the X-rated scenes can only be accessed via Internet and satellite TV pay channels, news of the sex antics sent audience figures through the roof for the daily highlights on the free M6 terrestrial channel.
The highlights show is already drawing five million viewers a day, about a third of the audience share, trouncing the ratings of the station's better-established rivals.
But as M6 ratings hits new heights, France's good and great fear viewing standards have plumbed new depths.
Two government ministers registered their disapproval of the program, while the French broadcasting authority (CSA) warned that it was closely watching the show to ensure that it did not do ``anything that could damage the dignity of the human person.''
The CSA also denounced the ``spectacle of the excessive consumption of tobacco and alcohol'' among the group.
On Thursday two respected newspapers, Liberation and Le Monde, dedicated their front pages to the saga, while the conservative daily, Le Figaro, denounced the show's ``unequalled vulgar dialogue,'' branding the venture ``gutter television.''
Some psychiatrists warned that the contestants' mental health was in danger, while TV critics wondered whether the group of twentysomethings had any minds worth speaking of.
($1-7.368 French Franc)
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