It was 40 years ago, on November 4, 1984, that Canal+ was born, the first private, encrypted and paid channel in France, in a television landscape that was very small at the time. Canal+ had some very prosperous years, the famous “Canal years” which dusted off French television, but we have forgotten it a little: the first year of Canal+ was particularly difficult.
When Canal+ began broadcasting, it only had 180,000 subscribers who paid the equivalent of 40 euros per month for a simple offer: “cinema and sport”. Sport is above all the French football championship live, commented by Michel Denisot and Charles Biétry. On the cinema side, the channel inaugurates “multicasts”: the film The ace of aces with Belmondo passes four times in the first week.
The overwhelming majority of the program is encrypted, except between 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.: first a set show presented by Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, then the “Top 50”, the first official ranking of single sales in France.
But very quickly, big clouds gathered on the horizon: first technical problems between the decoder and certain televisions, and above all programs considered too flat by the written press which renamed the channel “Canal minus” or “Banal+ “. Three weeks after the launch, a newspaper published an electronic diagram for making its own pirate decoder. And then, in January 1985, came the “mass blow” directly from the Élysée: François Mitterrand announced new free channels! What's the point of paying for Canal+?
Immediately, the rate of subscriptions collapsed: only 3,000 per week while the channel expected 3,000 per day! In March, things are bad, money is lacking and we will probably have to lay off people. The question of a sale of the channel is raised.
Canal+ distributes free shares to its employees to retain them but some leave the ship, without having convinced the public. This is the case of PPDA, which is replaced in the evening “box” by the man who will become the great figure of Canal: Michel Denisot, in his show “Zenith”.
With the good weather comes (finally) a clearing: in June, almost 90% of subscriptions are renewed; the public appreciates Canal+ programs. So, in the humidity of summer, the management of the channel took the opportunity to broadcast a few erotic or downright pornographic films, and on August 31, 1985 at midnight, it instituted the broadcast of the X-rated film on Saturday evenings.
At the start of the school year, Canal+ strikes a big blow: Coluche arrives free-to-air every evening with the show “un faux”, in which the comedian regularly disguises himself and makes jokes behind his desk.
At midday, the channel opens a new free-to-air slot into which Philippe Gildas and his talk show “Direct” slide. Program boss Pierre Lescure is smiling again: in one year, Canal lost 500 million francs but won its battle against filing for bankruptcy, with 670,000 subscribers at the end of 1985. The adventure can continue. “Year 1” therefore ends, it’s time for the “Canal years”.
