Can quality and quantity co-exist ? a challenge for programme makers

Television and radio require a constant flow of programmes. Buying readily available programmes is the most obvious and usual method which is adopted when faced with the need to produce volume. In making choices, however, the broadcaster pays little attention to quality. Pierre Chevalier’s personal and professional experience when he worked for the Centre national de la cinématographie (National Centre for cinematography) enabled him to devise a solution which allowed him to reconcile quantity with quality. He asked film directors to make a series of programmes for the television channel Arté. By contrast, in radio, where production time is shorter, financial resources are limited, and the rate of repeat programmes is very low, he tries to create quality programmes by using ideas of repetition, variation and regular listening times, which are fundamental to many creative processes.