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February 23, 2007 |
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| Let them have poker | |||
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While French legislators struggle to
hammer out a final and effective law curbing online gaming in all
its forms, more and more French television networks--at least six so
far--are airing shows based on live poker, a type of wagering made
popular through Internet play.
Paris Première, Eurosport, RTL9, Direct8, JetTV and Canal Plus have all joined the fray to broadcast live poker contests, and rebroadcast poker tournaments previously held in Europe and the United States. French pundits have christened the craze “pokermania.” Much like the United States and United Kingdom, France’s pokermania has been fueled by the popularity of online poker play, whose growing fan base includes an estimated 500,000 French citizens. The television networks are simply meeting the increased demand for this expanding form of entertainment. The first station to bring televised poker to the French masses was Paris Première, which broadcast a poker tournament final in 2004, with popular French actor Bruno Salo acting as guest analyst. A year later, Première, along with Groupe Partouche, the second largest casino company in France, created a poker program called “The Tournament of Aces,” which is still on the air. The station also continues to air other poker tournaments, with well-known French poker enthusiasts Michel Abécassis and Estelle Denis acting as hosts/commentators. Despite the success of Paris Première, televised poker play did not take off until former TV personality Emmanuel Chain and his firm, Elephant & Co., acquired the rights to broadcast World Poker Tour events in France. Chain sold Canal Plus on the idea of running the shows, using pop singer, actor and poker fanatic Patrick Bruel as host. The 13 World Poker Tour events Canal Plus ran under this format in 2005 were an unprecedented success, drawing an audience in excess of 200,000 people. By 2006, World Poker Tour events telecast on Canal Plus were drawing in more than 400,000 viewers—no mean feat, considering Canal is a paid subscriber station and the poker show is only broadcast once a week. Another measure of how popular the program had become: Canal Plus has released “The Poker Touch,” an instructional DVD in which WPT host Bruel goes over the finer points of poker play. The DVD has sold an astounding 150,000 copies since its December 2006 introduction. Canal Plus is even considering hosting its own World Poker Tour championship event. The success of Canal Plus and Paris Première has other French television stations scrambling to find poker content. Direct8 launched a poker program in late January, with TV quiz show personality Patrice Laffont acting a master of ceremonies. Eurosport and JetTV have taken to broadcasting live poker events from venues around Europe. TF1, the country’s largest private network, will debut a live poker tournament show with a winning prize of €1 million in June. But how will poker popularity fare if Internet poker play is banned in France? Much like the United States, the French government is in the process of creating legislation aimed at curtailing online wagering within its borders. This past December, the French National Assembly adopted four amendments to its gaming laws that will hand tax authorities vast and additional powers to stamp out Internet betting by going after banks and other firms that hold or transfer online gaming proceeds. —Zafar Masud |
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