France 4 is a French free-to-airtelevision channel owned by France Télévisions, focused on entertainment programming. Originally launched as Festival, the channel took its current name in 2005 when it became a free channel. The colour of France 4 is purple. The channel targets young audience, and children during the day. In 2016, France 4 was refocused on family.
In 2001, when the French digital terrestrial television system was in its developmental stage, the socialist government of Lionel Jospin asked the president of France Télévisions to consider a bouquet of public channels to be broadcast digitally, so that the public broadcaster could have involvement in this project. France Télévisions proposed the creation of three new channels: "France 1", "France 4" and "France 6", an all-news channel, a channel dedicated to the regions, and a channel featuring repeat broadcasts of France 2 and France 3. Eventually, France Télévisions would have four digital channels besides France 2 and France 3, with three of them occupying existing channels: France 5, Arte and La Chaîne Parlementaire, a legislative channel. France Télévisions thus only had space for one more new channel. The group eventually proposes the existing "Festival" to be the "new" channel. On October 23, 2002, the Audiovisual Superior Council authorised Festival to appear in digital. France Télévisions planned for Festival to be renamed "France 8" or "France Prime", but opted instead for France 4 after being allocated to channel 14. The newly created France 4 proposed to present a variety of entertainment, sports, fiction, cinema and series. In July 2009, France 4 began broadcasting in. On 6 October 2011, France 4 launched its HD feed. Since 31 March 2014, France 4 timeshares most of its daily time with the Ludo and Zouzous blocks. In June 2018, a proposal was issued to shut down France 4 as part of planned reforms of France Télévisions, with programming dispersed to France 5 and digital platforms. The proposal was criticised by France's animation industry. Okoo was launched on 9 November 2019 as the new children brand of France Télévisions used as a block in TV and a streaming service, in addition to being broadcast all day on France 4. Programming and content for teens and young adults is currently available online on France.tv Slash. France 4 is planned to close on 9 August 2020.
