Le développement récent des trois "petites" télévisions francophones de Suisse, de Belgique et du Québec, convergence ou divergence?

The following thesis is an organizational analysis of the recent development of television in Switzerland, French Belgium and Québec. The main interactions between different television organisations of these three societies are studied to understand how each of them coped with the very important increase of television channels that most of the industrialized countries have encountered in the last twenty-five years or so. This organizational study is based upon the following principle: one may more easily grasp the specifics of a given society when it is compared to similar specifics of other societies. By considering the development of television as a social itinerary in each of these three societies, it becomes possible to see how values, interests, coalitions as well as conflicts played a vital role in a new multi-channels television environment. In so doing, the inevitable comparison between Canadian and American television so often made in Canada is avoided. The gap is so big between these two countries that, for once, it is worth using units of comparisons of about the same size.  At the end of this study, it becomes clear that regulatory bodies in each of the three societies set out policies and guidelines to strongly encourage more existing television channels. Accordingly, a certain convergence between these three societies does exist and the popular belief that a given market was left to itself in a new television environment cannot be no longer sustained. However, if there are some elements of convergence, elements of divergence are much more important. In Switzerland, the increase of television channels was made in an orderly manner since consensus between all kinds of organizations is a vital part of Swiss way of life. In Belgium, since conflicts are the fundamentals of the everyday life among political parties, cultural and linguistic communities, oppositions remained very important in this increase of television channels. However, one must recognize as an end result that, surprisingly, the whole television environment stays rather stable.  Québec had a development of its own. CRTC, the Canadian regulatory body, is mainly responsible for an overdevelopment of Québec television since the television environment in Québec counts a surprisingly high number of television channels for such a small industrialized society. The whole thing was deliberately planned by CRTC as an answer to an everlasting Canadian fear: an American cultural invasion, a “danger” that yet has to be proven. However, this overdevelopment of television did not come with increased resources to support so many television channels. Québec television offers too much with too little. This might explain a certain loss of quality observed in Québec television over the recent years. Things would probably be much easier if, for once, Québec television was considered for what it is: a small television in a highly developed and industrialized world. If that kind of consideration goes without saying in Switzerland and Belgium, it still is not the case in Québec.

Keyphrases: Convergence, Divergence, Organisation, Régulation, Québec, Canada, Television, Organization, Regulatory body, Belgium, Quebec, Switzerland