French gay TV channel comes out
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3951669.stm

French gay TV channel comes out
France's first private TV channel for gay and lesbian audiences - PinkTV - has marked its maiden broadcast with a celebrity party in the capital, Paris.
Politicians, media figures and stars like Claudia Cardinale were among some 2,500 who gathered to celebrate the first transmission on Monday evening.

France's culture minister said he hoped the channel could help people "live their freedom and respect one another".

PinkTV aims to show anything from porn films to cult shows like Wonder Woman.

Its backers hope to draw advertisers to the new subscription channel in pursuit of the higher spending power of gay people.

Rarely has the term "Gay Paris" been quite so apt, the BBC's Caroline Wyatt reports from Paris.

The city's popular mayor, Bertrand Delanoe, is openly gay.

Gay couples already have the right to a legal partnership contract and a lesbian couple recently gained equal parental rights over their child for the first time in French legal history.

'Broad space'

Mr Delanoe was among the guests at the party in the Chaillot Palace, who also included a former Socialist Prime Minister Laurent Fabius and the actors Michel Blanc and Nathalie Baye.


"I hope that PinkTV becomes a broad space of freedom and culture allowing all of our fellow citizens live their freedom and respect one another," said Culture and Communications Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres.
PinkTV is backed by three of France's main channels and has received widespread and mostly positive coverage in the French media, being promoted as a hip, urban channel which hopes to attract both straight and gay viewers.

Comedy programmes will include French and Saunders and Metrosexuality, while there will also be documentaries on subjects such as Aids and the life of rock star Freddie Mercury.

Sports programmes will be presented by a transsexual, Brigitte Boreale.

The channel will also broadcast porn films after midnight with titles like Madame and Eve, and Out of Athens.

Financial challenge

Subscribers will pay nine euros ($12) a month and the channel hopes to have at least 180,000 subscribers within two years.

Advertisers make up 20% of PinkTV's revenues, keeping its budget to just over 12m euros a year.

However, some other TV stations aimed mainly at gays and lesbians have not done as well as expected financially.

Pridevision, a similar gay channel launched in Canada in 2001, and Gay TV, which started in Italy in 2002, are both struggling.

But PinkTV's backers say the demand is there in France and they are optimistic it will succeed.

I want a TV Channel for all fat webmasters. FWTV.

Heh :1orglaugh

PinkTV has got to be the worst name for it.
Why cant they just call it something more respectable like GTV or gay entertainment television?

Heh, PinkTV sounds like it would be a channel by Hustler or something:glugglug

I'm surprised it's taking so long to get a gay US station going. There have been several plans from major companies like Viacom over the past few years that haven't materialized. There was a channel I watched for a couple months on satellite called QTV that played a couple programs a day alternating as a "sample programming" block but several weeks ago that disappeared and I have no idea if they just went away or moved to another satellite or scrambled.

:eek7 :eek7 :eek7 :eek7 :eek7

It's not even a porn channel! :(

According to the article they will play porn. Probably like Pridevision, gay themed programs and movies during the day/evening and adult stuff late night. Speaking of Pridevision, they are about to spilt into 2 channels. One will be all-porn and all porn will be removed from the main channel. My guess is it has something to do with trying to get the main channel in the US.

they're taking their time to make sure it's done right and the numbers work.
They dont want to roll it out and have it fail, then noone will ever want to do a gay channel.
Id rather they do it well and have it be profitable because of better production and planning.

I say just show reruns of friends, will and grace, sex and the city, rosie, and add some home improvement/makeover shows and it'll be a hit.

I cant wait until the rednecks see it, they are going to flip out. It'll be fun to watch the hillbillies go nuts over the channel.

glad to see people getting tolerant nowdays

what the gay...

Just another station I won't be watching.

Good thing these days there's a ton to choose from:thumbsup

exactly the pint i was trying to make this is good news, this and also boots is going to start selling sex toys