Selling the Yellow Jersey

by Eric Reed

  Second, the French government envisioned establishing a national broad-

  cast media devoted to public service, not private profi t. Since the 1936 Popu-

  lar Front government, offi cial state policy was to use its control of media to

  56

  c h a p t e r t h r e e

  shape the evolution of France’s popular culture.16 Successive French govern-

  ments before and after the Second World War engaged in a long- term cam-

  paign to limit the commercialization and manage the content of broadcast

  media. They erected a large, state- controlled, commercial- free broadcasting

  infrastructure that dominated radio and television in France for decades. Al-

  though private stations were free to do business as they saw fi t, the govern-

  ment taxed their on- air advertising heavily and severely limited their trans-

  mitting power.

  Legal constraints hamstrung private radio stations, made radio advertis-

  ing expensive for businesses, and led to a highly regionalized network of pri-

  vate French broadcasters in the 1930s. These policies led to the commercial

  domination of the airwaves by several powerful radio stations just outside

  French borders. The most important of them was Radio Luxembourg. The

  station was owned by Luxembourg’s government but managed as a for- profi t

  business. Because of its enormous transmitting power, Radio Luxembourg

  could broadcast commercial programming from French advertisers to most

  of France despite the French government’s restrictions.

  In 1937, as French government restrictions on radio advertising tightened,

  Desgrange reached an agreement with station chief Louis Merlin to make

  Radio Luxembourg the “offi cial” radio broadcaster of the Tour.17 Desgrange

  transported Radio Luxembourg’s reporters in Tour vehicles and allowed

  them special access to the riders and race organizers. That year, four stations broadcast 110 minutes of coverage each day of the Tour. Radio Luxembourg

  broadcast four ten- minute updates each race day and accounted for approxi-

  mately 36 percent of the Tour’s national on- air coverage in 1937.18

  Desgrange introduced several innovations to the Tour’s itinerary and for-

  mula that made the race more exciting and facilitated radio broadcasts. He

  staged the fi rst- ever individual time trial in 1934. Time trials were well suited for real- time broadcast over the airwaves. Competitors left the starting gate

  at timed intervals and in descending order according to the overall stand-

  ings. The time trial accentuated the “star quality” of the famous racers since

  it gave each Tour “ace” a grand moment in the spotlight. The drama and

  excitement of the time trials built over the course of the day as each rider

  attempted to beat the best previously posted times. Desgrange staged six in-

  dividual time trials the following year. Desgrange also shortened the overall

  length of the Tour after 1929 and altered the daily schedule so that the vast

  majority of stages began in daylight and ended by the late afternoon. The

  total length of the Tour decreased from an average of 5,467 kilometers dur-

  ing the years 1919 – 29, to 4,543 kilometers during the period 1930 – 39. The

  number of hours raced per day also dropped considerably. In 1929, the stages

  t h e t o u r a n d t e l e v i s i o n

  57

  averaged 8.5 hours in length but only seven hours in 1939. While six stages

  during the 1929 Tour lasted more than ten hours (including one of more than

  sixteen hours), only one stage lasted more than ten hours in 1939.19 This more

  compact schedule served radio journalists’ need for shorter stages that fi t easily into predetermined, regular broadcasting schedules.

  The race’s growing national and international radio coverage pleased the

  Tour’s publicity- hungry host towns. In Pau, which endured a sharp contrac-

  tion of its tourism industry after the Great War, radio coverage of the Tour

  offered the town a chance to reach new audiences. The president of Pau’s

  visitor’s bureau, responding to criticisms that hosting the Tour cost the city

  too much money, pointed out, “When you think about the interest generated

  around the sporting world by this great international cycling competition —

  and about its retransmission by all the [French] radio stations to other

  countries — you understand without any diffi culty what splendid publicity it

  generates for a town like ours.”20

  Postwar governments played an even more prominent role in shaping

  popular media. Immediately after Liberation, de Gaulle’s government reaf-

  fi rmed the state’s radio monopoly and even went so far as to requisition all

  private radio broadcasting stations.21 De Gaulle created a new, state- controlled entity, Radiodiffusion- Télévision Française (RTF), to run the nationwide radio and television broadcasting networks. Postwar governments perpetuated

  and enhanced the offi cial, anticommercial media policies of the early radio

  era. Government policy strictly forbade commercial advertising of any kind

  between 1944 and 1968. By contrast, advertising- funded television arrived in

  Great Britain in 1955, Italy in 1957, and West Germany in 1959.22

  Paradoxically, the state’s policies established a media environment in

  which commercial popular culture fl ourished. The government’s policies

  spurred the reestablishment of for- profi t, French- language broadcasters in

  neighboring countries. Shortly after the war, Radio Luxembourg, with the

  dynamic Louis Merlin still at the helm, resumed operations. Radio Lux-

  embourg competed with two other quasi- public, for- profi t stations, Ra-

  dio Monte- Carlo and Sud- Radio, which broadcast from Andorra. In 1955,

  Merlin established Europe No. 1, a radio- television station that broadcast

  to most of Western Europe from the Saar region of southwestern Germany.

  The commercial stations broadcasting from outside French borders were ex-

  tremely popular: between 1948 and 1968, they gradually captured half the RTF

  audience.23

  Programming on for- profi t radio and television differed signifi cantly

  from programming on France’s government- run stations. Parties in power

  used radio and television to generate political support for themselves and

  58

  c h a p t e r t h r e e

  their policies, such as during the anti- Communist campaigns of the late 1940s

  and the Algerian crises of the mid- and late 1950s.24 French media also aimed

  to cultivate and educate by exposing the French to the nation’s great intellec-

  tuals.25 RTF developed serious- minded programming in which educational

  programs, documentaries, theatrical dramas, interview or discussion shows,

  and light entertainment such as variety shows and musical performances fi g-

  ured highly.26 RTF also introduced the French to the nation’s new (and old)

  generations of artists. Young singers like Jacques Brel and Georges Brassens,

  as well as established entertainers like Edith Piaf and Maurice Chevalier, ap-

  peared frequently on state- radio variety shows. Programming on Merlin’s

  Radio Luxembourg tended toward light entertainment, game shows, and

  musical spectaculars, with less emphasis on educating or cultivating its lis-

  tening audience. Radio Luxembourg pioneer
ed the development in Europe

  of American- style radio game shows. They tended to be brief (fi fteen min-

  utes), funny, overtly commercial, and sponsored by a sole advertising client.

  In one of Merlin’s biggest hits of the early 1950s, “The Talent Show” ( Le Cro-chet Radiophonique), sponsored by Dop Shampoo, audience members sang

  or showcased their humorous and unusual skills. Singer-host “Zappy Max”

  Doucet anointed contest winners with the catchphrase, “Dop, Dop, Dop, he’s

  adopted by Dop.” A loud gong dispatched losers while Zappy Max exclaimed

  his signature sendoff, “Now get out of here and wash your head, with Dop it’s

  always a pleasure.”27

  The groundbreaking role of the private- station news services during the

  political crises of the 1950s and the growing reliance of French listeners on

  them for up- to- date, accurate information and entertainment forced a reas-

  sessment of the state media’s “public mission.” Merlin’s Europe No. 1 sent

  special correspondents to cover breaking crises in Hungary, Suez, and Algeria

  during the mid- 1950s.28 RTF, by contrast, had no correspondents in Suez or

  Algeria and instead depended on communiqués sent from the fi eld by French

  army offi cers for its on- site information.29 Beginning in the early 1960s, RTF

  responded to the success of private stations by developing more light televi-

  sion fare that appealed to popular tastes, such as game shows, comedies, and

  dramatic serials. RTF relegated many of the “serious” shows to time slots in

  off- peak hours.30 In 1964, the government transformed RTF into the Offi ce de la Radiodiffusion et Télévison Française (ORTF), a state- funded but quasi-independent agency, and removed direct government controls over radio

  and television content.

  The history of the battle over the airwaves highlights a central theme in

  the development of mass culture in twentieth- century France. Beginning in

  the 1930s, the French state erected formidable barriers to the encroachment

  t h e t o u r a n d t e l e v i s i o n

  59

  of commercialism in broadcast programming that, paradoxically, spurred the

  emergence of a powerful commercial broadcasting industry that succeeded

  in capturing a signifi cant portion of France’s listening audience.31 In a sense, the state’s resistance to “Americanization” helped to build a cultural infrastructure in which commercialized popular culture could fl ourish. Thus, the

  French state’s media policies redounded to the benefi t of enterprises, events, and spectacles that created opportunities for businesses to circumvent the

  government- mandated barriers to commercialization of the media, espe-

  cially in the television era. The Tour, after some hesitation, transformed itself into just such an event.

  2. Transforming the Tour into a Televised Spectacle, 1949 – 1974

  Jacques Goddet guided the Tour de France into the television age reluctantly.

  Goddet took over the Tour directorship briefl y in 1936 when Desgrange fell

  ill. The Parisian- born Goddet managed the Tour and L’Équipe for four decades after the war. In many of his wide- ranging, sports- related endeavors,

  Goddet acted as a forward- thinking modernizer. The sporting world rec-

  ognizes Goddet as one of the prime movers of the internationalist move-

  ment in professional sport. Goddet inspired and helped organize the fi rst

  European Cups in soccer and basketball in the 1950s and the fi rst World Cup

  skiing championships in the 1960s. Yet his English education and sporting

  background — Goddet spent part of his youth at a private school in Oxford,

  where he rowed and played rugby — imbued Goddet with a traditionalism

  that tempered his innovative tendencies.

  These confl icted perspectives shaped how Goddet and the Tour navigated

  the entry of France’s national bicycle race into the television age. At fi rst, Goddet and the other organizers feared that expanded television coverage

  would erode readership of L’Équipe and Le Parisien libéré. As early as 1953, Tour organizers characterized television coverage as a mere “distraction”

  compared to the press. Yet they requested that the government restrict televi-

  sion broadcasts of the race in order to preserve the primacy of print journal-

  ism and require state media to help pay for the event.32 Tour offi cials refused to provide television crews with adequate facilities and technical assistance.33

  Prior to the 1962 Tour, the fi rst to feature corporate teams since 1929, a press consortium opposed televising the race on the grounds that transmitting images of publicity- fi lled racing jerseys would subvert the state’s prohibition on commercial advertising.34 French television responded by refusing to air

  several live- broadcast stages.35 Despite these strains, Goddet and the other

  organizers recognized the power of television to increase the commercial im-

  60

  c h a p t e r t h r e e

  pact of the Tour, and they eventually encouraged the growth of television’s

  coverage of the race.36

  In the summer of 1949, Pierre Sabbagh, a young journalist at RTF, created

  the fi rst- ever journal télévisé (televised evening news program) in Europe. To attract viewers, Sabbagh decided to make Tour coverage the centerpiece of

  the fi rst weeks of his groundbreaking show. Under Sabbagh’s guidance, RTF

  enacted an ambitious plan to provide viewers with daily race updates and

  highlights during the journal télévisé. Sabbah had a tiny budget, “amateur”

  equipment, a small crew, and an army surplus jeep. One of the reporters

  loaned his Peugeot car to the project, and Sabbagh paid for some of the crew’s

  food and lodging out of his own pocket.37 The fi rst journal télévisé aired on June 29, the day before the start of the Tour. Each night thereafter, France’s

  tiny viewing public — only 3,794 television sets existed in the country by

  1950 — watched moving images that RTF had recorded in the provinces the

  previous day while on- air presenters in Paris provided live commentary.38

  Throughout the early and mid- 1950s, such fi lmed material accounted for

  the vast majority of race coverage that RTF broadcast on television. In 1956,

  L’Équipe guessed, optimistically, that two million viewers would watch Tour highlights each evening on France’s 400,000 sets.39

  Camera technology made broadcasting live, direct from the race course,

  impractical on a large scale until the late 1950s. The cameras were heavy and

  delicate. They could not generally be used in inclement weather and they

  had to be set up at a fi xed location and connected to bulky transmitters by

  cables. However, the Tour was French television’s technical laboratory, and

  the techniques developed to make direct broadcasting more feasible were

  later employed to televise other sports, including the 1968 Grenoble Winter

  Olympics.40 For the Tour, technicians developed mobile cameras that beamed

  pictures wirelessly to stationary transmitters; employed cameras with zoom

  lenses, some mounted on helicopters, to follow the race action more closely;

  and developed lightweight, color cameras for use during the competition.41

  As technology improved, RTF transmitted more and more race coverage,

  much of it direct from the course, to France’s burgeoning television audience.

  By 1966, R.T.F’s total air time devoted to the Tour amounted to twenty- one

  hours
and eleven minutes, and live, on- site broadcasts accounted for more

  than thirteen hours of the total. In 1970, the total air time for Tour coverage rose to twenty- eight hours and twenty- four minutes, of which live transmissions accounted for more than twenty- three hours.42

  French television devoted more and more personnel and fi nancial re-

  sources to covering the Tour in the late 1950s and 1960s as R.T.F’s manage-

  ment diversifi ed the state network’s programming. French television’s Tour

  t h e t o u r a n d t e l e v i s i o n

  61

  crew grew from eleven to twenty members between 1952 and 1956. By 1960,

  the RTF Tour crew’s size had more than quadrupled to include ninety jour-

  nalists and technicians, thirteen cars, two busses, two equipment trucks, a

  helicopter, a jeep, and a radio- equipped motorcycle.43

  Few exact estimates of the Tour’s television audience in the 1960s and

  1970s exist. The percentage of television- equipped households in France rose

  from 9 to 80 percent between 1958 and 1974.44 A Goddet- commissioned sur-

  vey of the event’s broadcast audience in 1973 concluded that close to twenty

  million French viewers tuned in to television coverage of the race.45 By 1980,

  according to Tour offi cials’ estimates, the race’s television audience dwarfed the estimated twelve million roadside spectators and international retransmissions of coverage reached approximately thirty million viewers in other

  countries.46

  The transformation of the Tour into a televised spectacle illustrates how

  the audio- visual media forged for themselves a powerful place in postwar

  popular culture. The popularity of televised sport in France undoubtedly

  helped the new medium to fl ourish and to gain acceptance.47 The expansion

  of television viewership in France had profound, unanticipated ramifi cations.

  Television viewing began to replace traditional leisure activities and social

  traditions. In his ethnohistory of a provincial village that he visited in 1951

  and in 1959, Laurence Wylie documented how television began to erode long-

  standing modes of sociability after the war. As more of the local residents

  purchased televisions, the village’s social life began to change. One farmer,

  whom Wylie described as a fi xture at the village’s weekly boules tournament in 1951, explained in 1959 that he had stopped competing on Sundays because