RTL9
RTL9 is a French-language Luxembourgish television channel shown in Luxembourg, France, Monaco, French Speaking Africa and the French-speaking regions of Switzerland.
History of the channel
Télé-Luxembourg
On 1 July 1954, CLR changed their name to CLT, 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 the Villa Louvigny coincided with the start of the construction of a television antenna at Ginsterberg close to Dudelange, a site which assured good reception, due to its altitude of, and its location only 200 metres 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 Duchess Charlotte I launched Télé-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 at Villa Louvigny. The shows were directed from the building situated at the foot of the Dudelange Radio Tower. This omni-directional transmitter allowed Télé Luxembourg to be well received at first, with a range of around around Luxembourg, Ardennes, Lorraine and as far as Reims and Mulhouse. Using a VHF 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 than Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française, 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 and Wallonian 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 in Luxembourg, Belgium and Lorraine.
Even with the addition of some high-ranking staff from RTF, such as Jacques Navadic and Robert Diligent, later of Journal 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, the CLT built a tower towards the top of Villa 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 as L'École Buissonnière, there were reports from around the country and neighbouring Francophone regions on Journal 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 and fun. 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 7th Eurovision Song Contest in 1962 shown across Europe from the Villa Louvigny. This national event was shown live to every café in the country.
In 1969, the Belgian government moved the frequencies for radio relay to cable. Coditel installed a reception station in the Ardennes at Saint Hubert and broadcast a signal from Télé-Luxembourg via cable from Namur, Brutélé which was distributed to the periphery of Liège and Brussels. From then on, est Belgacom 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. Télé-Luxembourg then drew its main revenue from Belgium.
This family-oriented direction was popular and led Jacques 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 in Luxembourg, the East of France and Belgium, reinforced by their move to colour in 1972 : as well as the VHF 819 line transmitter reconverting to 625 lines SECAM, two new UHF transmitters were launched at the Dudelange Radio Tower, one for channel 21 in SECAM for France, one on channel 27 on PAL 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 of Jacques Harvey announcing : "Here is Télé-Luxembourg, channels 7, 21 and 27, Dudelange transmitter, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.". The game shows soon followed, with Coffre-fort presented by Michèle Etzel, under the slogan Vivement 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, the Dudelange 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 authorised TDF to use the former VHF 819 line transmitters of TF1 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.. 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, entitled Dix en lice ?, the public, the channel, and a jury of celebrities chose Marylène 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 and Georges Lang.
RTL Télévision
RTL Télé Luxembourg was renamed RTL 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 between Brussels and Luxembourg. The antenna was split channel between UHF SECAM 21 and UHF PAL 27. It allowed the Belgian channel to show Belgian-specific programmes alongside programmes for viers in Luxembourg and Lorraine. RTL Télévision then moved to the bottom of Avenue Franklin Roosevelt in Brussels, and built a studio, allowing it to extend its coverage 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 the CLT creates RTL Plus on 2 January 1984 for the German market and shown on the VHF channel E-07, which meant the loss a large part of the French audience of RTL Télévision from the reception zone of channel 21 to Lorraine, to the disappointment of those from Alsace, South-Lorraine, and Champagne-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 of M6, created for the French market. In September of the same year, the Belgian channel of RTL Télévision became independent with the launch of RTL-TVi which produced all of its programmes in Brussels. 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, and signing stars such as Geneviève Guicheney and launching new faces Agnès Duperrin and Martin Igier who had just graduated from the École Supérieure de Journalisme in Lille 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 to RTL Hei Elei, a new channel created in Luxembourg at the demand of the government. This was the end of an era.