France Ô () was a French

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscri ...

television channel featuring programming from the French

overseas department The overseas departments and regions of France (, ; DROM) are the five departments and regions of the French Republic which are located outside European France (also known as " metropolitan France"). These overseas entities have exactly the s ...

s and collectivities in Metropolitan France. It was part of the France Télévisions group. It was a national counterpart of the local Outre-Mer 1ère networks.

History

The channel was launched in 1998 as RFO Sat by Jean-Marie Cavada, then-president of RFO, and initially broadcast for only 9 hours per day. It was re-branded as France Ô on 25 February 2005 after the reunification of RFO with France Télévisions. The "O" stands for ''Outre-mer'' (overseas); the

circumflex The circumflex () is a diacritic in the Latin and Greek scripts that is also used in the written forms of many languages and in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from "bent around"a translation of ...

, which is considered an accent in French grammar, was used to emphasize that the channel was open to diverse accents and dialects, as well as to ensure that the name was not read as ''France 0'' ("France zero"). Simultaneously, the channel increased from a nine-hour operation to 24 hours a day. The channel became available in overseas territories in November 2010, replacing the RFO-operated Tempo, and was launched in DTT nationally the same year.

Closure

In July 2018 the French government announced the closure of France Ô due to declining viewership. The ceasing of broadcast was scheduled for 9 August 2020, in time for the climax of the

2020 Summer Olympics The officially the and officially branded as were an international multi-sport event that was held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some of the preliminary sporting events beginning on 21 July 2021. Tokyo ...

, but was later pushed to 24 August due to scheduling issues caused by the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, which resulted in the games being initially delayed to 2021. The last programme broadcast on the channel was a repeat of the concert ''L'Outre-mer fait son Olympia 2019.'' After this, the channel only broadcast a loop of commercials promoting a new France Télévisions portal for overseas territories, known as "Portail des Outre-mer La 1ère", in addition to other overseas-themed programs on other France Télévisions channels. Its signal was permanently cut off on 2 September.

Logos

File:France Ô logo.png, Logo of France Ô from 7 April 2008 till 29 January 2018. File:France Ô - logo 2018.svg, Logo of France Ô from 29 January 2018 till 24 August 2020. File:France Ô 2018.svg, On-screen logo of France Ô from 29 January 2018 till 24 August 2020.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:France O France Télévisions French-language television stations Television channels and stations established in 2005 2005 establishments in France Defunct television channels in France Television channels and stations disestablished in 2020 2020 disestablishments in France Indigenous television

History

Closure

Logos

See also

References