Television
Initially recruited to present the programmes of the new national television network RTF in 1949, Catherine Langeais was probably the most popular lady presenter (speakerine) of French television, from the end of the 1950s through the 1970s. It was she who welcomed BBC viewers in the first international on-line television broadcast, the Franco-British week of July 1952, thanks to the new conversion standard which was to allow, a year later, the international broadcast of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, and later the inauguration of the Eurovision song contest.
In parallel with introducing programmes, Catherine Langeais took part in diverse light entertainment programmes in the years 1950-1960, such as "C'est arrivé à 36 chandelles" and "La séquence du spectateur" (later renamed "La séquence du téléspectateur"), as well as the cookery programme "Art et magie de la cuisine" with the chef Raymond Oliver.
A chronic illness, which she concealed for a long time, made the job difficult but did not prevent her from working until 1955. Patiently, although ill, she continued with her programmes ("A vous de juger", "La séquence du téléspectateur", and some children's programmes). On Sunday 5 January 1975, she emotionally closed the broadcasts of the first channel (ORTF), which was replaced the next day with the new public company Télévision Française 1 (TF1) in which she did no more than the voice-overs of the "La séquence du téléspectateur", while her husband Pierre Sabbagh was director of programmes for the second channel.
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Famous quotes containing the word television:
“Television ... helps blur the distinction between framed and unframed reality. Whereas going to the movies necessarily entails leaving one’s ordinary surroundings, soap operas are in fact spatially inseparable from the rest of one’s life. In homes where television is on most of the time, they are also temporally integrated into one’s “real” life and, unlike the experience of going out in the evening to see a show, may not even interrupt its regular flow.”
—Eviatar Zerubavel, U.S. sociologist, educator. The Fine Line: Making Distinctions in Everyday Life, ch. 5, University of Chicago Press (1991)
“History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember. All other history defeats itself.
In Beverly Hills ... they don’t throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.
Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.”
—Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)
“Never before has a generation of parents faced such awesome competition with the mass media for their children’s attention. While parents tout the virtues of premarital virginity, drug-free living, nonviolent resolution of social conflict, or character over physical appearance, their values are daily challenged by television soaps, rock music lyrics, tabloid headlines, and movie scenes extolling the importance of physical appearance and conformity.”
—Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)