France 3 () is a French free-to-air public television network. The second flagship network of France Télévisions, it broadcasts a wide range of general and specialized programming.
France 3 is structured as a regional service with 13 regions, each of which carrying programmes of regional interest alongside the national schedule. These include local news and current affairs programmes, programmes highlighting the region, and in some areas, programmes presented in regional languages. Since the 2020s, France 3 has also collaborated with Radio France's regional service Ici, with France 3's news bulletins falling under the Ici title, and the two services simulcasting the breakfast programme Ici Matin.
The network first launched by the Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française (ORTF) on 31 December 1972 as the . In January 1975, as part of the separation of the ORTF, the network became the independently operated France Régions 3 (FR3). In September 1992, FR3 merged with Antenne 2 to form France Télévision, with the channel rebranding as France 3 as a result. In 2000, France Télévision was merged with the remaining public channels to form the present-day France Télévisions.
In 2018, France 3 was the third most watched television network in France.
History
La Troisième Chaîne Couleur (1972–1974) On 22 March 1969, the government mentioned a plan to create a third national television channel. Jean-Louis Guillaud, attached to the Office of the President of the Republic, coordinated the preparatory studies for its launch from November 1969. This new national channel of the French Television Broadcasting Office (ORTF) was to be launched directly in color and to allow better exposure of the regional offices of the ORTF through many opt-outs and through the decentralized production of the channel's programmes. The ORTF implemented this project throughout 1972 in the form of a national and interregional channel in color, without advertising or continuity announcers (although out-of-vision announcers were later introduced), offering shorter evenings at different times compared to the other two channels, with a majority of cultural programs, and relying largely on the technical and editorial relays of its regional stations.« Avant le démarrage de la 3ème chaîne : les programmes et les régions », Micros et caméras, First Channel of the ORTF, 9 December 1972, ina.fr. To accomplish this, the Board is setting up several heavy production centers within its main regional stations to produce programming for the new channel. The most important are those of Télé Marseille-Provence, Télé-Lille and Télé-Lyon.« », Actualités Méditerranée, ORTF Télé Marseille-Provence, 17 January 1972, ina.fr. The third channel thus responds to the main concern of reform law no. 72-5534 3 July 1972, on the status of the ORTF, which aims to introduce the decentralization of production and the devolution of decisions on programs the Office.
The third color channel () of the ORTF started its operations on 31 December 1972, at 7 pm with its start-up theme, which was followed by the CEO of the ORTF, Arthur Conte, and the general manager of the channel, Jean-Louis Guillaud, who present their wishes to the French for this new channel and for the year to come, calling on the ORTF's regional television services and aspiring young staff to join the new network, and then followed by Jean Amadou welcoming the viewers to briefly explain to them what will distinguish this new channel from the two others, in particular in its colorful, dynamic design and the introduction of genre credits before each programme, to replace the announcers, and which are all the work of stylist Catherine Chaillet. Then, the first program, , a program for young people, was launched with the cartoon Roulotte, followed at 8:35 p.m. by the inaugural evening of the channel consisting of a variety show written by Maurice Horgues, Jean Amadou and Robert Rocca, directed by Dirk Sanders and produced by the Lille8 production center and whose national sponsor is the singer Anne-Marie David, chosen by the CEO of the Office.
The director general of the third color channel, Jean-Louis Guillaud, decides to make extensive use of the regional stations of the ORTF and young directors for the production of the programs, because the third channel intends to prove itself as a new channel regions and cinema, using state-of-the-art techniques and high-quality graphics. The original project, which planned to rely on the cultural and artistic actors of the regions within the framework of the long-awaited decentralization within the Office, in fact comes down to a simple deconcentration of resources of production, regional television remaining confined to the little space granted in the opt-outs of the national service.
For the first time, the candidates of the second round of the presidential election of 1974, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and François Mitterrand, agree to confront each other verbally in a televised debate, arbitrated by Jacqueline Baudrier and Alain Duhamel and broadcast on 10 May 1974, simultaneously on the three ORTF television channels.
Audiovisual reform law no. 74-696 of 7 August 1974 abolished the ORTF and created seven independent bodies, including three national television program companies. It came into effect on 1 January 1975, and the third ORTF channel closed its antenna on 5 January 1975, at 9:40 p.m. to make way the next day for the new national program company France Regions 3 (FR3).
For lack of a complete network on this date of 5 January 1975, a good part of France have known the programs of the ORTF's third channel. Throughout its run, broadcasts were restricted to three hours each evening and only reached a potential audience of 26% of the population – its transmissions primarily covered Paris, the Ile-de-France and Northern regions.
Autonomous from the state (1974–1999) In 1974, the new President of the Republic Valéry Giscard d'Estaing asked his Prime Minister to present a communication on the French Television Broadcasting Office to the Council of Ministers on 3 July. Jacques Chirac then assures that "the new organization must be based on competition between autonomous units, fully responsible. It must ensure free and open information, must exclude any waste by relying on streamlined structures. The reports of the State and of the new autonomous units should be limited to the designation of its leaders". Law No. 74-696 7 August 1974, abolished the ORTF and created seven independent bodies, including three national television program companies, a national sound broadcasting company, two public industrial and commercial companies responsible for the production and broadcasting and a national audiovisual institute. The state monopoly is maintained and each of the companies is placed under the supervision of the Prime Minister. The Office's television director, Claude Contamine, was appointed by the Council of Ministers as president of the future national television program company to succeed the ORTF's third channel. The choice of a manager from the seraglio responds to the already well-defined face of the future third channel in the law of 7 August, article 10 of which specifies that "one of the national companies reserves a privileged place for the programming of films on television". This point is also clearly written into the specifications of the national program company France Régions 3, which makes it not only the channel aimed at the regions, but above all the channel of cinema and fiction in the broad sense, FR3 in front should devote more than half of its evenings to the airing of films and TV films. This new national television program company is also responsible for managing and developing the regional radio and television centers created by the Office (22 regional stations and 29 radio centers governed by 11 metropolitan directorates and a DOM-TOM directorate managing 9 stations in French overseas territories). We then count on the productions of the 22 regional stations, then equivalent to 35 minutes of regional television per day.
Law no. 74-696 7 August 1974, came into force on 1 January 1975, with the official birth of the three national television program companies , and , the national sound broadcasting company Radio France, the French Production Company (SFP), and the National Audiovisual Institute (INA).
On Monday 6 January 1975, at 6:55 pm, France Régions 3 begins its operations with a program schedule similar in all respects to that of the former third channel. The channel broadcasts only four hours of programs a day and devotes only five minutes to its inaugural broadcast this evening of 6 January to make way for the film Peau d'âne by Jacques Demy.
TDF activates the FR3 transmitters at 2 pm, a paradox because the channel then broadcasts both the target and its own programs. Until the arrival of a 24-hour broadcast, TDF will broadcast FIP as background music from 1975 to 2000 on network 3, then France Info until 2002.
FR3 programs are mainly devoted to cinema, debates and regional stalls. The cinema channel, FR3 participates as a co-producer and for a sum of 5,450,000 francs in the development of the seventh art. Following complaints from movie theater owners, who are concerned about unfair competition, Claude Contamine negotiates with the Film Industry Liaison Office (BLIC) to remove the movies from Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings, as well as twelve film showings on Wednesday evenings while in return creating a film club slot on Sunday evenings in the second half of the evening. The agreement was finalized on 16 January 1976, and was on the air two months later.
On 1 September 1975, an agreement was signed between the two national program companies FR3 and TF1 to allow the latter, which inherited the first black and white VHF network in 819 lines, to be able to broadcast its programs in color. FR3 agrees to make available the color broadcasting network to TF1 reserved for it for regular transmissions in the afternoon until the start of its own programs at 6 pm. In return, the agreement provides for TF1 to employ the regional production centers for FR33. The overseas station FR3-Comores became FR3 Mayotte on 14 December 1975, following the declaration of independence of the Federal Islamic Republic of the Comoros. With the gradual appearance of more specifically regional television content in 1976, the State very slowly undertook the administrative and economic regionalization of French territory, where regional stations gradually entered into this new framework.
FR3 must separate from its overseas broadcasting station of the French Territory of the Afars and Issas on 27 June 1977, following the declaration of independence of the Republic of Djibouti, although its still appeared highlighted in the channel's start-up sequence.
On the programming front, the network's first national news programme was introduced in 1978 in the form of Soir 3, a late night national and international bulletin. 21 October 1981, saw FR3 begin regular live coverage of ministers' questions in the National Assembly. Advertising was introduced to the network in January 1983. By September 1983, the twelve broadcasting centres around the country were airing an average of 3 hours per day of regional output. Popular programming on Saturday night included the first airings of the American soap opera Dynasty and a Disney Channel strand. National and regional news at peak time was integrated into a new nightly programme, 19|20, launched on 6 May 1986.
On 5 May 1981, the debate between Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and François Mitterrand for the second round of the presidential election, arbitrated by Jean Boissonnat and Michèle Cotta was broadcast simultaneously on TF1, Antenne 2 and FR3.