Yourope on ARTE: Review of the first broadcast

Yourope, the second new Europe-and-the-web format of ARTE (on ARTE+7) has everything I expected from "The Blogger" which I have just criticised.

26 minutes definitely worth watching!

"Le Bloguer" / "Der Blogger" on ARTE: Review of the first broadcast

I have to admit that when I blogged with positive anticipation that ARTE would introduce a new format called "Le Bloguer" / "Der Blogger" (The Blogger), I expected something totally different.

I had thought that this would be a format in which they would take up topics from the different European blogospheres or real web discussions and connect them in a modern TV-style. Something like L'Europe en Blogs with a broader range of topics and on TV.

But all they have done in their first broadcast (available for those living in Germany and France via ARTE+7 until Saturday) is to produce a standard TV programme, using 2-3 online videos and setting up a blog in German and in French, the French version having much more content so far.

This is no speciality of this particular programme, many other TV formats have their own blogs or use web videos - but they don't call themselves "The Blogger".

This wouldn't be a big problem - if the story-telling of the programme wasn't so slow, with very few cuts and long interviews that don't advance their story at all.

How can you make a programme called "The Blogger" that wants to be part of web discussions and then report at snail speed, without any provocation, neither visual nor in content?

If they want to create a debate around a topic like violence in schools (covered the whole 26 minutes), why spending 3/4 of the time on outdated corporal punishment or the question of how to get "discipline", while never really looking at the violence itself, its causes and the real effects this has in schools?

And where is the web in all this, despite the web videos used?

I have difficulties to understand what kind of audience they are looking for - but if they will have a second broadcast like this, they will have lost me, a person who really likes to watch ARTE and a blogger involved in web discussions. Especially if the moderator Anthony Bellanger continues to talk into the camera like a school teacher.

So the first "Blogger" was a clear #fail and the marks on ARTE+7 are quite bad so far - will they be able to change or continue their old-style, non-web story-telling for an unclear audience?

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)

Tuvalu & L'Europe en blogs

Everybody is speaking of Tuvalu these days, the country that sells the top level domain .tv.

Which brings me to the best TV station on earth, ARTE, a French-German co-production full of culture, charm, knowledge and little details - and on the web ARTE can be found at arte.tv.

And this brings me even closer to a beautiful little blog called "L'Europe en blogs" that belongs to the ARTE blog collection.

Written by a French living in Berlin, the blog is full of culture, knowledge, charm and little details, full of lovely humour, journeys through European blogs, glances at Europe's multicultural facets and much more.

If you speak French, you shouldn't miss a post, and if you don't speak French, you are missing something with every post.

Merci et félicitations, Prune, for L'Europe en blogs, a true gem of the euroblogosphere!

The Czech EU-Council Presidency (9): We will won't sweeten Europe

Found at Arte.tv



I am surprised that Mr. Klaus is not in the video. But maybe he was party pooping...