When the inhabitants of Cherbourg and Cotentin did not receive Canal+

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Ce November 4, 2024 marks the anniversary of the encrypted and private channel Canal+who celebrates his forty years. We owe the creation of Canal+ to André Rousseleta great enthusiast of contemporary art, then president of the very powerful Havas company.

Died in 2015, this man of power was close to President François Mitterrand; he was also his chief of staff at the presidency of the Republic, from the victory of the left in 1981.

Technological prowess orchestrated initially by Léo Scheer, the birth of Canal+ marked the end of three channel television and state monopoly, a real revolution for the time.

The arrival of Canal+ is an event in Paris and the provinces. Expected by some, decried by others, the birth of this encrypted and paid channel was the start of the reconfiguration of the audiovisual landscape in France.

No signal in Cherbourg

However, in Cherbourg (Manche) and in the urban area, on Sunday November 4, 1984, at 8 a.m., no one got to watch the launch of this new channel live by André Rousselet, from the final control room of the Olivier-de-Serres tower in Paris.

This, quite simply because he was impossible to capture it. Indeed, for the people of Cherbourg, but also for the inhabitants of the wider Cotentin, Canal+ was then only an invisible thing, just a subject of conversation.

The good television news was announced by a real newspaper, via an article from La Presse de la Manchein March 1985, titled: “Canal Plus soon in Cherbourg and Saint-Lô”.

In plain language

The arrival of Canal+ in the Manche department has sparked many questions from professionals. This will lead the Télédiffusion de France (TDF) and Canal+ teams to organize a meeting in Saint-Lô to explain to local television sellers the arrival of this new channel and the following concepts: subscription, decoder, encryption and multicasting.

Upon his arrival in Cherbourg, in April 1985, the authorized resellers indicated to La Presse de la Manche in a unanimous voice: “We didn’t expect to see so many people. » The Press even headlined: “The 4^e chain appeals to Cherbourg residents. »

Many people went to Jean-François Hébert’s store on Boulevard Schuman, and nowhere else, in order to subscribe as quickly as possible.

Robial spins the ellipse

Beyond its programs and its encryption technology, Canal+ innovates graphically and visually with the creation of the concept of packaging (television credits, Editor’s note). The color ellipse of 1984 and the squares of 1995 are due to the magical talent of a graphic designer with Norman roots, Étienne Robial, alongside the late director Mathias Ledoux.

Contacted, the former artistic director of the channel remembers: “It was Pierre Lescure who asked me to provide the overall graphic identity of Canal+; we prepared the channel’s design in July and August 1984, at night in London, in the BBC and Channel 4 control rooms, because there were no graphic palettes in France. The result was astonishing, unexpected and surprising; the eye was not used to it. »

Cherbourg resident Blaise Mistler, one of the directors of the Canal+ group between 2007 and 2012, discusses the important role of the encrypted channel: “By virtue of a sort of historic pact, Canal+ very quickly became the linchpin of financing French cinema . If we benefit from such abundant and diverse French cinema, while many other European cinemas have almost disappeared, it is largely thanks to this pact. »

Furthermore, and it is less known, the Canal+ group has developed significantly internationally and distributes its channels in many regions of the world: in Africa, in the Indochinese peninsula, in the Antilles, in the Indian Ocean. , in the South Pacific.

Forty years after its launch, the encrypted channel is present in millions of homes in France and around the world. Today, Canal+ is playing in the big leagues under the leadership of its current president, Maxime Saada. The best proof of this commercial power is that Canal+ is preparing to debut on the London Stock Exchange next December.

Nicolas CALLUAUD

Next week: the affair of the Arsenal pirate decoders.

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