In southern France, a private TV initiative takes the safeguarding of the Occitan language to the next level by mainstreaming Occitan content for all age-category audiences over traditional and social media.
For Indigenous languages, online presence is often a key element that can determine whether they will survive well into the 21st century, given that out of the 7,000 spoken languages today, half are threatened and one disappears every two weeks or so with the death of its last speaker.
France, despite being multilingual from the earliest period of its history, imposed a monolingual policy in education and society at large from the late 19th century that managed to almost eradicate its linguistic diversity of over 20 languages. Today, there is a revival of non-French languages —officially called regional languages — one of which is the Romance language called Occitan traditionally spoken in southern France.
Today the estimated number of Occitan speakers varies between 300,000 and nearly one million people, and the language is regaining presence in the public space, including in media. One key actor in the Occitanophone media landscape is the private TV channel ÒCtele that broadcasts in Occitan solely starting in 2013.
For more on Occitanophone media, read Press Freedom also means media in indigenous languages: The case of France's Occitan
Guillaume Saint-Cricq, who is a production assistant at ÒCtele, spoke to Global Voices in French over email, to tell us more about Occitanophone audiences and future of the language in media.
Filip Noubel (FN) How did the idea of a private TV channel broadcasting in regional languages, as they are called in France, came about? Does ÒCtele get any support from the French state?
Guillaume Saint-Cricq (GSC): Options for media content in regional languages have always been insufficiently provided for, as the director of ÒCtele, Lionel Buannic, has noted.
Buannic was initially a journalist and worked as editor-in-chief of TV Breizh [a private channel initially broadcasting in the Breton language] from 2000 to 2005. A native of Brittany, he is very attached to local culture, and he founded a production company called LBgroupe that launched Brezhoweb, a web-based TV channel, in December 2006. This model of web-based TV and online broadcasting was very innovative at a time, when YouTube was less than two years old. Indeed, launching a TV channel over the internet entirely in Breton was quite a daring concept.
The production company and the TV channel developed, and in 2013, LB Group inaugurated its second channel, ÒCtele, in Occitan this time. Local government authorities, in particular the New Aquitaine Region and the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, were looking for an operator to produce and broadcast programs in Occitan, which provided a great opportunity for us. In 2022, a third channel was created, Galoweb, this time in Gallo, a Romance language from Upper Brittany.
Cooperation with public partners is important and necessary because channels in regional languages cannot be financed solely through advertising revenue. The audience for such content is not large enough, as the case of V Breizh, which had to abandon its programming in Breton to survive, shows. The challenge is to allow for a TV, radio, and web sector to develop in regional languages so that there are broader media choices made available on the long term.
Our economic model is therefore quite different from traditional TV channels. It is not based solely on public financial support, as part of the group's income also comes from the production of audiovisual content for various communities and businesses.
FN: Who is your audience and how is it evolving? What role do social media play in your strategy for engagement? What are the most popular programmes?
GSC: As a general content TV channel, our audience is quite diverse. We offer programs for all ages: for little ones with nursery rhymes and cartoons, but we also provide reports and interviews for those interested in social issues. We also have feature and entertainment programs. The goal is to offer any content that could be found on a “classical” TV channel, but in Occitan.
We also want to develop our audience and include non-Occitan speakers thanks to subtitles in French. In addition, there will be a new online program with Occitan lessons to learn the basics, by the end of the year.
This openness is part of the strategy of socialization and normalization of the language to take Occitan out of the private sphere, and bring its presence in the public domain as an acceptable language, as a possible choice. Our presence on social media is another example, in addition to being a must for our communication and our visibility. It is essential to be on social media these days, even more when our audience is spread over a territory as varied and vast as cultural Occitania. Digital communication is so important that a drop in our presence on social media has a direct impact on our audience.
The most watched programs are usually those that deal with local topics like our program “Eveniments” or cultural programs like “Lo petit bal occitan” or “A taula!” , mini-series (“Lo rei que s'escon,” “Lo Jaç) and interviews (“L'Emparaulada,” “Cara and Cara“) are also quite popular.
FN: How are your journalists trained? Are there curricula in France for journalists working in regional languages?
GSC: There is very little training in regional languages in France, and it is usually around literature or teaching courses. Professionalization is complicated, because, in addition to mastering the language, technical skills are required, such as editing, framing, writing, production, directing. There is indeed no course that allows you to combine both aspects.
Some of the journalists and employees had the chance to learn Occitan either with their family, or during their schooling, and were able to study in a field without Occitan. But this is rather exceptional, so it is necessary to rely on people with less knowledge and fluency in Occitan, but who are nevertheless competent in areas essential for media production.
One of the solutions is to recruit people who at least have an interest in Occitan, and let them learn the language during their professional training. This should be seen in the same way employees get capacity-building training in the workplace.
FN: How do you see legislation around regional languages evolving in France?
GSC: There is a renewed interest in Occitan among French people, as shown in the OPLO [Ofici Public de la lenga occitana, Public Office for the Occitan Language, a state institution] 2020 sociolinguistic survey. Besides, the support of local state authorities for Occitan is a good sign. But the number of speakers and the presence of Occitan is still too low to ensure natural transmission. So, besides the initiatives and actions of associations and activists, it is important that the state proposes a policy for teaching Occitan on a larger scale, and at all levels, particularly in higher education.
Unfortunately, there is still opposition, witnessed when France's Constitutional Council censored the Molac law that would have allowed progress in developing immersive education in primary education.
Regardless, we can note a certain overall improvement, and we remain confident when we see local authorities giving more and more importance to linguistic policies that give a better recognition to regional languages.
Source: Global Voices