France's first gay TV station launches with diet of porn, "Wonder Woman"

France's first gay TV station launches with diet of porn, "Wonder Woman"

Published: 10/25/2004





PARIS, Oct 25 (AFP) - France's first gay and lesbian television station was to go to air Monday, beaming a steady diet of homosexual porn, daily repeats of "Wonder Woman" and English language comedies into subscribers' homes.

Pink TV, as the channel jointly financed by France's main exisiting commercial networks is known, hopes to ride on a wave of acceptance for the gay lifestyle in Europe and elsewhere.

The station, available via satellite or cable for nine euros (12 dollars) a month, follows the launch of similar ventures in Italy and Canada over the past three years, and comes just five months ahead of yet another such channel in the United States.

Long-standing tolerance in Paris -- reinforced under openly gay mayor Bertrand Delanoe -- and the recent court approval for France's first homosexual family headed by two lesbians, along with a debate over gay marriages triggered by the June wedding of two men, have all convinced Pink TV's backers the time is right for their niche offering.

Underlining its readiness to make waves, the station published an ad using a picture of former leaders Francois Mitterrand of France and Helmut Kohl of Germany walking hand-in-hand with the tag "There's not only sex in the life of a couple".

But sex plays a big part in Pink TV's programming schedule. Four times a week, after midnight, the station will screen gay porn movies, starting Monday with "Out of Athens" and later including lesbian features such as "Madame and Eve".

"Pink TV is a meeting place for gay and gay-friendly people who have been waiting for a new perspective on the world around us," said the channel's head, Pascal Houzelot.

The chief executive -- who spent time working for Jacques Chirac before the latter became president, and who was an advisor to leading commercial network TF1 -- has said the station does not want to be a "ghetto" outlet for homosexuals only.

In a bid to attract a wider audience -- but one keyed in to the urban and ironic humour favoured in much of the homosexual community -- Pink TV is to present a number of shows with wide appeal.

Thus "Wonder Woman", the 1970s US series starring Lynda Carter, has been pressed into service on a nightly basis, and British comedies such as "French and Saunders" and US productions like "Queer as Folk" "Metrosexuality" will also feature.

There will also be documentaries starting with Freddy Mercury and AIDS as subjects but also venturing farther afield.

Sports coverage, fittingly enough, will be handled by a tall transsexual in heels and a skirt known as Brigitte Boreale.

The channel aims to sign up 180,000 subscribers within two years, but Houzelot it would initially be "very happy" with 5,000-10,000 to start with. One newspaper, Le Parisien, said the channel showed there was a "homo wave" sweeping France and quoted Houzelot as saying he estimated around 3.5 million people out of the country's population of 60 million were gay.