Television documentary production in France
Résumé
This article discusses the regulatory framework within which the television documentary production industry operates in France, and how public policies have created and then adapted a support system in response to the active agency of professionals. I give particular attention to the reform of the support system implemented between 2014 and 2017, which has privileged certain categories of non-fiction programmes and affected the patterns of production. I will look at the definition of quality criteria in documentary funding, focusing on the pivotal, though controversial, notion of ‘creative documentary’, and on the diverse approaches that inform French audiovisual policy. By focusing on policy interventions, the article will address the economic and political history of television documentary in France between 1986 and 2017.