New ARTE formats: "The Blogger" & "Yourope"

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Update (11 January 2010): See my reactions on "The Blogger" and on "Yourope" after their first broadcast.

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The director of programming of the French-German TV channel ARTE, Christoph Hauser, informs that from 2010 they will introduce two new programmes that are directed at the net and at bloggers.

I have recently praised ARTE and in particular the ARTE blog L'Europe en Blogs, and so it looks really interesting that they now announce to take a closer look at the net in these new formats next year (own translation):

Christoph Hauser: As a far as it makes sense, we will take up ideas that have developed on the net in our programme. With the new European magazines "The Blogger" and "Yourope" we try to make a targeted use of new technologies. "The Blogger" will find its ideas directly in the web. "Yourope" is a format that explicitly doesn't end with the broadcast but that will continue in forums and blogs and that will include its audience.

"Yourope" starts on Sunday, 10 January 2010, 17:45, and the title of the first programme will be "Networked or entangled - How social networks dominate our life". I couldn't find the date for the first broadcasting of "The Blogger" "The Blogger" will be broadcasted Saturdays at 14:00 (source).

Let's see how ARTE will execute these formats and especially whether they will be able to engage with the public or whether they will find an engaged audience. It will probably depend on how intensively they get involved themselves with what is discussed in blogs and forums, and how intelligent they are in realising this in programmes of 30 minutes length.

If they succeed, they might even be able to help to create a transnational European blogosphere, at least Franco-German for the beginning, by bringing together the mass audience (though limited masses in the case of ARTE) of the TV with a smaller but more active audience on the net.

One thing I'd find important is that these programmes will be freely available and embeddable in blogs all over Europe because most of the audiovisual online content of ARTE is only accessible in Germany and France so far. If they really want to engage with a wider European audience, this deficit needs to be tackled.

In any case, these are formats worth trying, in particular since ARTE has the unique position of being a transnational channel with a transnational audience, thus already reaching out to those who might have an interest in European discussions, discussions that we are also trying to create here in the blogosphere.

(Thanks at Kosmopolit on Twitter for making me aware!)

(Updated 22 Dec 09, 11:45)