Broad- v. Narrow-casting in a Globalizing World. -Core post # 4 - week 7

When I was a new immigrant to the United States from France, TV had two uses –– both mentioned in the article “Ethnic/Diasporic/Transnational: The Rise and Fall of ImaginAsian TV” by Benjamin Han. Most obviously, it seemed that TV would be the US national media apparatus that would help catch on with US culture. And sooner rather than later, TV turned out to also be a link back to my "motherland" and native culture. That’s where TV5 Monde comes in as my own experience of the ethnic, diasporic, transnational channel. At first I thought of it as the “French channel.” It was a French-language channel, but it wasn’t exactly a channel from France. The programming was “francophone” rather than “French.” A good part of it did come from France, but there were also programs from “French Africa” and from Quebec, each in their respective iterations of the French language and with their own local flavors. At some point I was really enjoying watching re-runs of a Canadian sitcom called Catherine. It was quite the discovery to see these characters live out a life that seemed halfway between France and California, both in terms of culture and language. Funniest of all: the French Canadian show was subtitled in “French French.” Those subtitles were very much needed, because the two languages are actually quite different.

I think the TV5Monde channel still exists but we are no longer subscribed to it. TV5Monde, with its francophone transnational programming, maybe wasn’t exactly providing the home fix that permanent emigrants could hope for. Maybe the channel has a better appeal with short term expats who see themselves as global envoys from the French epicenter. For actual emigrants, the flavors of the home country are more easily accessed via streaming services where there is now easy access to quality French films and TV series these days. 

Linking back to Han article about why ImaginAsian TV was not sustainable, I believe that in a globalizing world where more and more people are in “unique” cultural/identity circmstances, it is increasingly difficult to measure the wants and needs of different populations, to lump them together and broadcast to them. Narrowcasting seems to be the way to reach people “where” they are, both physically and culturally.