France Televisions Ups Docu Budget

PARIS -- Public broadcaster France Televisions said Thursday it will invest €71.5 million ($86.4 million) this year in the production of documentaries, with the genre being accorded more primetime slots across its four national channels than ever before.

Announcing the 11% hike over last year's documentary budget, Patrick de Carolis, who recently took over as head of France's public service television, said France Televisions hoped to further strengthen its position as the country's top investor and broadcaster of documentaries.

"More than ever, documentaries will be given pride of place, proving that public television associates quality programming with its audiences," de Carolis said.

France Televisions, which has been criticized in recent months by industry professionals for resorting to programming that is very similar to that of private broadcasters -- including too many U.S. series, will broadcast 5,000 hours of documentaries on its France 2, France 3, France 4 and France 5 national channels this year.

Ambitious history and science-based projects will be presented as special-event programming on France 2, the country's No. 2 channel with a 19.8% audience share, after private broadcaster TF1, which boasts a 32.3% audience share. The channel's €20.5 million ($24.7 million) budget for documentaries this year has registered a 25.7% jump over last year.

In addition to the BBC's "Hannibal," the channel will broadcast French productions, including "Marie Antoinette," written by Jean-Claude Carriere and produced by GMT Prods.; a documentary on French president Jacques Chirac and his four-decades in politics; and a portrait of Joan of Arc set against the backdrop of the French Resistance.

Science documentaries include director Nils Tavernier's "Odyssey of Life," about the miracle of birth; and Gedeon's "Toumai, the New Ancestor," a six-nation co-production that explores the story of the oldest-known human skull found by a French anthropologist in the north-central African desert.

Social and cultural documentaries, which form the backbone of France 3 -- which has a 14.7% total audience share and a documentary budget of €19 million ($22.9 million) -- will be accorded more primetime slots than ever before, according to a spokeswoman for the channel.

Upcoming high-profile docu-fiction includes "Mountain of Fire," a futuristic look at the expected catastrophic eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington, and "Hostages in Baghdad," based on the story of two French journalists who spent several months in captivity in Iraq in 2004.