“Loft Story” a blow to French pastry?

The French TV show Loft Story, which has spurred riots even while attracting record audiences, has made the upstart M6-TV channel on which it airs a serious competitor to the established channels, The Washington Post observed Thursday. It also has touched off debate among TV executives in France over how the success of the series (described as a combination Big Brother and Survivor, in which contestants are seen living in the same quarters virtually 24 hours a day) will affect the industry. One attorney working for a TV company told the Post: “French people think Americans are crazy, and we are supposed to be the cultural exception. But now French people also want to see this trash TV.” A TV producer worried: “I might have to see my programs in competition with this type of trash. They are already asking me for programs that are more crude and more violent.”