 | |
| Country | Luxembourg |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Luxembourg France Monaco Switzerland French Speaking Africa |
| Headquarters | 2850Luxembourg City |
| Programming | |
| Language(s) | French |
| Picture format | 1080iHDTV (downscaled to576i for the SD feed) |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | Mediawan Thematics |
| Sister channels | AB1,Mangas,Action,Automoto La chaîne,Animaux,Science et Vie TV,Toute l'Histoire,Trek,Chasse et Pêche,Ultra Nature,Crime District,Golf Channel,Lucky Jack.tv,XXL |
| History | |
| Launched | 23 January 1955; 70 years ago (1955-01-23) |
| Former names | Télé-Luxembourg (1955–1972) RTL Télé Luxembourg (1972–1982) RTL Télévision (1982–1991) RTL TV (1991–1995) |
| Links | |
| Website | www.rtl9.com |
RTL9 is a French-languageLuxembourgish television channel shown in Luxembourg, France, Monaco, Africa and theFrench-speaking regions of Switzerland.
On 1 July 1954, CLR (Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Radiodiffusion) changed their name toCLT (Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Télédiffusion), to state their new ambition: television. On 20 May 1953, the administrative council of la CLR authorised their president, Robert Tabouis, to sign a contract with the Luxembourg government to run a television channel. They obtained the authority of the Grand Duke to permit a state-run monopoly of the channel.
The achievement of the great works of theVilla Louvigny coincided with the start of the construction of atelevision antenna at Ginsterberg close toDudelange, a site which assured good reception, due to its altitude of 430 metres (1400'), and its location only 200 metres (yards) from the French border. The project showed the intention to broadcast eastwards towards France.
On 23 January 1955, the date of her 59th birthday, the Grand DuchessCharlotte I launchedTélé-Luxembourg with her husband,Prince Félix, marking the official birth of television in Luxembourg. On screen, a young announcer stated that"Télé-Luxembourg will become a part of your family". The first show consisted of introductions to the channel. At the time no studio had been installed atVilla Louvigny. The shows were directed from the building situated at the foot of theDudelange Radio Tower. This omni-directional transmitter allowed Télé Luxembourg to be well received at first, with a range of around 150 km (100 miles) aroundLuxembourg,Ardennes,Lorraine and as far asReims andMulhouse. Using aVHF channel of E-07 initially showing programmes at 625 lines, and renamed "canal Luxembourg" in France, the standard was kept at the "Belgium" 819 lines or "819 narrowband" used in Francophone Belgium. It used a narrower bandwidth thanRadiodiffusion-Télévision Française (with the result that images appear a little less clear), but have the advantage of being able to cram a greater number of transmitters in the same zone, allowing the channel to be seen by French andWallonian viewers as well as foreign viewers in Germany, Netherlands, and Dutch-speaking Belgium. They were the first private television channel in Europe. Their mission was to show inter-regional information in French inLuxembourg, Belgium and Lorraine.
Even with the addition of some high-ranking staff fromRTF (for which RTF unsuccessfully complained against Tele-Luxembourg), such asJacques Navadic andRobert Diligent, later ofJournal de Télé-Luxembourg, the launch of the channel was hazardous, with few experienced staff, teams consisting of former radio technicians who had moved into television. The productions became more professional and from 1956 to 1957, theCLT built a tower towards the top ofVilla Louvigny which became the offices and studios of Télé-Luxembourg. The channel, which was then broadcasting for thirty hours per week, eventually was becoming noticed by the viewing public, and became a part of the audiovisual landscape.
As well as the live programmes, such asL'École Buissonnière, there were reports from around the country and neighbouring Francophone regions onJournal de Télé-Luxembourg, and Télé-Luxembourg delivered key programmes from Paris Productions and foreign films and television series. Little by little, the channel created its identity, and marked its difference from the austerity of the national French and Belgian channels. It was marked out by its sense of levity (gameshows, soaps, and nightly films) and fun (strong presence of French presenters such asPierre Bellemare andGeorges de Caunes and announcers such asAnna-Vera). Advertising was present from the outset, but the presenters themselves delivered the messages live. The popular success was so high that their efforts were recognised by hosting the 7thEurovision Song Contest in 1962 shown across Europe from theVilla Louvigny. This national event was shown live to every café in the country.
In 1969, the Belgian government moved the frequencies for radio relay tocable.Coditel installed a reception station in the Ardennes atSaint Hubert and broadcast a signal from Télé-Luxembourg via cable fromNamur,Brutélé which was distributed to the periphery ofLiège andBrussels. From then on, estBelgacom which was then able to sell this on to other television distributors. The development of cable in Belgium, and especially Francophone Belgium, meant that Télé-Luxembourg sat alongside the French channels (TF1,Antenne 2 andFR3). Télé-Luxembourg then drew its main revenue from Belgium.
This family-oriented direction was popular and ledJacques Navadic in the 1970s to become the head of the channel. The programming consisted of films, American serials, gameshows, and chatshows using the same presenters gave Télé-Luxembourg star status inLuxembourg, the East of France and Belgium, reinforced by their move to colour in 1972 : as well as theVHF 819 line transmitter (channel E-07) reconverting to 625 linesSECAM, two newUHF transmitters were launched at theDudelange Radio Tower, one for channel 21 inSECAM for France, one on channel 27 onPAL for Belgium. Every day, at the start of the channel, the heraldic lion of Luxembourg appeared on the circles symbolising the radio waves and the name Télé-Luxembourg, followed by an image of the Dudelange transmitter, with the voice ofJacques Harvey announcing :"Here is Télé-Luxembourg, channels 7, 21 and 27, Dudelange transmitter, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.". The game shows soon followed, withCoffre-fort presented byMichèle Etzel, under the sloganVivement ce soir sur Télé-Luxembourg, and advertising based on car stickers which viewers were encouraged to place in their cars, with these cars then being filmed and broadcast on air.
On 30 July 1981, theDudelange Radio Tower was totally destroyed after a collision with a Belgian military aircraft, and RTL Télé Luxembourg was off the air for a few hours, until the back-up systems were up and running. The French president,François Mitterrand in person authorisedTDF to use the formerVHF 819 line transmitters ofTF1 in Lorraine to relay RTL Télé Luxembourg in colour until the rebuilding of the tower in Dudelange. However, the 819 line transmitter did not correctly show the programmes. The transmitter at Dudelange was rebuilt in 1983, replaced by an automatic pylon.
RTL Télé Luxembourg created entertainment shows and showed series before any other channels. (It was the first channel in Europe to showDallas, before evenTF1). A regular claim on the channel was that a programme was being broadcast "priority for RTL Television". This policy of "outreach" relied heavily on the personality of the presenters. Jacques Navadic, director of programmes, launched a search for a new presenter in 1977. On a memorable evening, entitledDix en lice ?, the public, the channel, and a jury of celebrities (Michel Drucker,Jean Lefebvre, Thérèse Leduc,Jacques Navadic, Robert Diligent) choseMarylène Bergmann to become one of the emblematic faces of the channel. A generation of new faces were first seen on the channel:André Torrent,Philippe Goffin,Bibiane Godfroid,Michèle Etzel,Claude Rappé,Anouchka Sikorsky,Jean-Luc Bertrand andGeorges Lang.
RTL Télé Luxembourg was renamedRTL Télévision in 1982, marking the emergence of the RTL brand. During the 1980s, RTL Télévision had reached their peak. Under the direction of the new programming director,Jean Stock, a clutch of programmes and presenters were successful:Le Train des jouets,Léo contre tous,Citron Grenadine,Tête à Tête,Stop Star,Le Coffre-fort,Fréquence JLB,Atoukado and many presenters.
On 4 March 1983, RTL Télévision launched a microwave betweenBrussels andLuxembourg. The antenna was split channel betweenUHFSECAM 21 (Luxembourg / Lorraine) andUHFPAL 27 (Belgium). It allowed the Belgian channel to show Belgian-specific programmes (JTL, presented byJean-Charles De Keyser and entertainment) alongside programmes for viers in Luxembourg and Lorraine. RTL Télévision then moved to the bottom of AvenueFranklin Roosevelt in Brussels, and built a studio, allowing it to extend its coverage (as part of the compensation package from the Belgian government for theDudelange accident) to cover all Belgian territory via cable television which meant rapid development in Belgium.
With considerable audience enlargement in Belgium, the channel is finally profitable, and theCLT createsRTL Plus on 2 January 1984 for the German market and shown on theVHF channel E-07, which meant the loss a large part of the French audience of RTL Télévision from the reception zone of channel 21 toLorraine, to the disappointment of those from Alsace, South-Lorraine, andChampagne-Ardenne, who were no longer able to view the channel. Part of the financial and technical resources of RTL Télévision moved to RTL Plus, while the channel also lost staff in March 1987, when a number of technicians, journalists and presenters took part in the launch ofM6, created for the French market (the sixth channel, launched after the collapse of the music channelTV6). In September of the same year, the Belgian channel of RTL Télévision became independent with the launch ofRTL-TVi which produced all of its programmes inBrussels. A number of key presenters and creative team of RTL Télévision were involved in these channels. At the same time, the five first cable television channels began broadcast in France.
Deprived of its Belgian audience, and broadcasting to Luxembourg and Lorraine, RTL Télévision was finding great difficulty in positioning itself in the French market. The need for renewal was felt to be essential, and in 1988, RTL Télévision tried to redynamise itself with small touches, such as modifying its logo and graphics (the appearance of the RTL balloon), and signing stars such as Geneviève Guicheney (fromFR3) and launching new facesAgnès Duperrin andMartin Igier who had just graduated from theÉcole Supérieure de Journalisme inLille to replace those who had joined M6 and RTL-TVI. On Christmas Eve 1987, Robert Diligent co-presented his last Journal Télévisé alongside Agnès Duperrin. Those responsible for the channel reorganised the programmes to have a new format which was attractive to the young and more suited to attracting a new audience base. An internal conflict escalated between the old and new generation, which stood in the way of new investment. RTL Télévision abandoned its public service mission in Luxembourg toRTL Hei Elei, a new channel created inLuxembourg at the demand of the government. This was the end of an era.
To mark the end of the era, RTL Télévision becameRTL TV in 1991, becoming the first channel of theCLT Group, while RTL Plus took over the nameRTL Television in 1992.
RTL TV changed its format due to the new director of programmes, Hugues Durocher, to attract a younger and more urban public. Films and serials gradually supplemented the traditional programmes and presenters were replaced by a new generation: Agnès Duperrin, Laurent Lespinasse, Katia Schmidt,Thierry Guillaume, Nicolas Albrand, Véronique Buson,Jérôme Anthony, Virginie Schanté, Françoise Gaujour,Fabienne Égal and Charlotte Gomez made their first appearances.
The channel aimed to restore the fundamentals of the channel and capitalise on the presenters and launched a vast publicity campaign under the slogan "l'esprit de famille". This slogan was repeated on air by presenters at the key shows on the air:Scrabble RTL withThierry Guillaume and Véronique Buson,40 minutes withMarylène Bergmann at the start of the evening, the 52-minute weeklyRTL Santé presented by Agnès Duperrin, the female magazineF comme Femmes every lunchtime with Véronique Buson and Françoise Gaujour, the video shows ofMusic Family andLigne Basket with Jérôme Anthony and Virginie Schanté andGalaxie withThierry Guillaume, shown for the youth at the end of the afternoon and Wednesday afternoons and the job showHelp!.
Refocussing on the public in Lorraine, RTL TV became more regionalised, and launchedRTL Lorraine, which was separated from its big sister oncable andsatellite with local shows (40 minutes en Lorraine, and other programmes on cable and satellite on Wednesday evenings) only available to the public in Lorraine via the radio transmitter on Channel 21 from theDudelange Radio Tower.
In 1995, RTL TV marked their 40th anniversary with great ceremony in the grand auditorium ofVilla Louvigny and officially renamed the channelRTL9 at the end of the night. The official reason for the change of name was a new youth focus to the channel (RTL9, c'est neuf !), but theCLT stated that the move was to avoid confusion with the Belgian channel,RTL-TVI and the German channelRTL Television.
In 1997, theCLT joined with the German audiovisual groupUFA and so controlled production, broadcast, and rights for programmes. Faced with their Belgian and German cousins in direct competition in their countries, and with the increasing success of M6 in France,CLT-UFA faced questions regarding their audience in Lorraine and on French and Swisscable. The new German-Luxembourger group was less attached to the heritage aspect than to the economic aspect of the company and urgent cost-cutting measures were undertaken. In December 1997, the group cut staff at the channel for economic reasons (RTL9 showed a loss of 50 million French francs) and on 3 March 1998, 65% of the capital of the channel was sold toAB Groupe, withCLT-UFA keeping the remaining 35%. A number of viewers deserted the channel, as did some of the key figureheads of the channel, led byMarylène Bergmann, who had been a presenter at the channel since 1977. OnlyJean-Luc Bertrand, director of programmes, remained at the channel.
Reaching 650 000 homes on terrestrial channels in Lorraine andLuxembourg, 2.1 million homes viacable in France and Switzerland, 1.5 million via satellite contracts on theTPS satellite package, and via theCanalSat package, RTL9 is the number one channel in terms of relative audience for cable and satellite for the past ten years, and is the third most watched channel in Lorraine. Due to this,AB Groupe proposed that the channel should move todigital terrestrial television in France on 1 July 2002. TheCSA refused, since the channel was a foreign channel, and therefore, it was not subject to the same obligations as its French rivals in terms of the broadcast of films and adverts, leading to unfair competition.
In 2005, RTL9 celebrated 50 years of broadcast with archive footage from between 1955 and 2005, but mostly from the RTL9 period, including a musical spectacular fromOlympia in Paris presented byJean-Luc Bertrand. In contrast toRTL-TVI which broadcast a documentary in March 2005 tracing the history of Télé-Luxembourg and the independence of the Belgian channel, orRTL Télé Lëtzebuerg which showed a documentary at the end of 2005 about the "T" in RTL, RTL9 did not show a similar programme, due to the loss of records when they moved offices in 1995. Instead, for the last week of December 2005, the programme of Jean-Luc Bertrand,Bienvenue chez vous, was taken over by former stars of the channel: Michèle Etzel, André Torrent,Jean Stock,Georges Lang andMarylène Bergmann, specially brought in to talk about their professional memories of the history of RTL Télévision.
Since 4 September 2006, RTL9 has renewed its graphic without changing its logo. The new graphic is 3D, created in-house, using the colours and the three shapes which form the channel's logo. A second event took place at the same time: the return ofMarylène Bergmann after nine years away, to take over presenting duties onRTL-TVI, two days per week with her old co-presenterJean-Luc Bertrand, onBienvenue chez vous on RTL9 Lorraine.
From its foundation as the station of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, theRTL empire is still growing now shown in Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Eastern Europe, covering 38 television channels and 29 radio stations in 2007.
In May 2008, AB changed RTL9, changing the regional nameRTL9 Lorraine toRTL9 Est accompanied by a dedicated website.
In February 2009, AB rejuvenated the website of the channel with an emphasis on video content and the prominence of various departments of AB Groupe.
Since 16 September 2009, RTL9 have a Swiss feed with local ads.
On 1 June 2010, RTL9 passed in16:9.[2] On 13 May 2014, RTL9 went on high definition on the Canalsat bouquet and in 2015 on Numericable and SFR. The channel is no longer broadcast in standard definition from this date on Astra.[3]
On 21 July 2017,Mediawan, through its audiovisual companyAB Groupe, bought the 35% held byCLT-UFA and became its sole owner.
From 23 January 1995 to 2 March 1998, RTL9 was wholly owned byCLT SA, which becameCLT-UFA SA in 1997. On 3 March 1998 the CLT-UFA Board of Directors decided, under pressure of theGroupe Bruxelles Lambert, to sell 65% of the capital of RTL9 toAB Groupe SA, with 2.25% of the capital held by theBanque Populaire de Lorraine.[4] RTL9 is now 65% owned byAB Luxembourg SA, a wholly owned subsidiary ofAB Groupe SA, and 35% byCLT-UFA SA, a 99.7% subsidiary ofRTL Group, which bought in 1998 the 2,25% of theGroupe Banque Populaire de Lorraine.
From 21 July 2017,Mediawan becomes the sole owner of the channel by purchasing the shares held byCLT-UFA.
Presidents:
Director of broadcast:
CEO:
Programme directors:
Director of programmes and special operations:
Directors of information:
Director of Marketing and Business Development:
RTL9 is owned 97.75% by Mediawan Thematics (who acquired RTL Group's stake in 1998 and 2017), with 2.25% owned byBanque populaire Alsace Lorraine Champagne.
The first headquarters of Télé-Luxembourg were based atVilla Louvigny inLuxembourg, a building flanked by an eight-storey tower, built in 1956–1957 by theCLT and housing the offices and studios of the channel. This address has become a legendary site in the audiovisual landscape. RTL Télévision and RTL TV stayed until 1990.
RTL Télévision moved to studios at 3, allée Saint-Symphorien,Metz at the end of 1990 to reach the public of Lorraine, but the final parts of the business remained at Villa Louvigny. In summer 1996, the television services at Villa Louvigny moved to new premises of theCLT named KB2 (KB1 was the building of the CLT dedicated to radio), built inKirchberg,Luxembourg.
As the first cable and satellite channel in France, in 1995 RTL9 had a studio in Paris built atCNIT inla Défense until 1997.
Unfortunately, this move was not a success due to the declining fortunes of the channel, and people and materials were moved back toMetz andLuxembourg in December 1997, when RTL9 sold 65% of its capital to the AB Group.
This was the end of an era, and forty years of viewing was placed into the hands of the administrators.
In December 2005, the regional station left the Technopôle inMetz to move to 29 boulevard Saint-Symphorien, still inMetz.
RTL9 today is a TV station without any regional content, and is dedicated to recent cinema releases and to general entertainment consisting of numerous imports of recent popular US TV shows and of programmes from the AB Groupe catalogue.
Transmission of RTL9 on the terrestrialUHFSECAM channel 21 from theDudelange Radio Tower in the south ofLuxembourg to the Lorraine region ended just after midnight on 1 January 2011. On 28 February 2011, digital TV transmission on channel 21 relaunched with a new TV station, "Air, l'autre télé".
RTL TV was shown onTélécom 2B satellite from 1992 until the end of 1994, but encrypted. A payment of 120 French francs was necessary to decrypt the information via a decoder, costing 690 francs. At the end of December 1996, the new satellite packageTPS launched the analogue signal, shown by the Télécom 2B satellite, to be shown via theHot Bird satellite at 13° east until the start of 1998, when they would begin to broadcast in digital quality. On 26 December 2001, TPS gave the exclusive rights for the satellite broadcast to RTL9 and the channel was then shown onCanalSat.AB Groupe, which has operated since April 1998, include it in theirAB Sat satellite package.
In 2005,AB Groupe proposed to theCSA that the channel could be shown for free onTélévision Numérique Terrestre (TNT). It would have meant making the channel dedicated to "French fiction" and no longer showing films on Wednesday, Friday or Saturday nights, as the showing of films on these evenings is still banned in France. The project did not go forward, but AB got three other frequencies:TMC andNT1 for free-DTT, andAB1 for pay-DTT.
RTL9 is available withCanal+ and Bis Télévisions satellite packages, on Luxembourgishcable, French (Numericable), Swiss (UPC,Naxoo and Net+) and Lebanon (Cablevision), and on televisionADSL packages.
It is also available on Molotov.tv and Watch it.
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