ABSTRACT
In several important respects the 1970s was a decade characterized more by continuity than change in French television. Ownership of sets increased throughout the decade, but the pace of growth was far less striking than in the 1960s (see table 5.1). By 1969 under 70 per cent of French households already possessed a television set. While ten years later this figure had climbed to 92.7 per cent-a not insignificant statistical progression as France sought to catch up with its main European neighbours-this represented a continuation of the trend established in the previous decade rather than an innovative breakthrough.1 Nor was there any major modification in the 1970s in the daily amount of time spent watching television by French viewers. The average French adult watched television for 128 minutes per day in 1979 compared with 107 minutes at the end of the 1960s. Moreover, even this small increase was more a result of the medium’s growing market penetration than of alterations in individual viewing habits.2 In terms of both television ownership and audience usage, therefore, it is clear that by the end of the de Gaulle presidency, the medium was no longer a new social phenomenon. The possession of a television set had become an integral part of a consumption pattern which embraced all socio-economic groups, while television viewing had fully metamorphosed into a routinized leisure activity.
