France 2, the French TV Channel

Presentation

France 2 is the largest French public TV network. It is part of the France Télévisions group, which also comprises France 3 and France 5.

France 2 used to be called Antenne 2 (Aerial 2) until September 7th, 1992. Earlier, in the 1970s and as part of ORTF, it was simply called La Deuxième Chaîne (The Second Channel).

Broadcasting began in 1962 using the 625-lines standard (but not yet in color) hence preparing the extinction of the older (black-and-white only) 819-line TV standard.

On October 1st, 1967 at 2:15pm CET, the network switched broadcast from black and white to color using SÉCAM. Antenne 2 was the first colour channel in France, it would be several years before the first network was colorized and changed to the 625-line TV standard.

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