Comédie+ (formerly Comédie!) is a French cable network showing humorous programs since 1997. It bears some resemblance to

Comedy Central Comedy Central is an American basic cable channel owned by Paramount Global through its network division's MTV Entertainment Group unit, based in Manhattan. The channel is geared towards young adults aged 18–34 and carries comedy programmin ...

; even the ''comédie'' word in the name is used in the very broad American meaning. It is directed by Dominique Farrugia, a former member of the

Les Nuls ''Les Nuls'' (also known as ''ABCD Nuls'') was a French group of comedians appearing between 1987 and 1992 on the channel Canal+. The actors Alain Chabat, Dominique Farrugia, Chantal Lauby and Bruno Carette Bruno Carette (1956–1989) was a Fre ...

comedy team. An often-shown program is La Grosse Emission which helped popularize the comedians troupe named Les Robins des Bois (The Robinhoods).

History

Comédie! began its broadcasts on 29 November 1997 on Canal Satellite and then on cable. The channel is dedicated to the actor and comedian Bruno Carette from the troupe

, who died in 1989. In 2003, the channel was bought by Pathé, which reformatted it to make it a mini-generalist of laughter and humor. As of September 20, 2003, its programs began at 8 a.m. Monday through Sunday. Following its withdrawal from television, Pathé sold the channel at the end of 2004 to multiThématiques, a subsidiary of

Groupe Canal+ Groupe Canal+ is a French mass media company. It is owned and controlled by Vivendi and has a film library in excess of 5,000 films. Vivendi has sold some parts of Canal+ to private investors which are still using the name of Canal+. It is headqu ...

. The channel had been selected in 2005 to be among the pay-TV digital terrestrial television (TNT) channels shared with Cuisine TV, but its authorization was canceled shortly afterwards. On 1 July 2015, Canalsat made a full transition to MPEG-4 and HD, Comédie+ switched to HD at this date. On 1 July 2016, Comédie+, Infosport+, Planète+ and Planète+ A&E were removed of

Numericable Numericable was a major French cable operator and telecommunications services company. Numericable was originally created in 2007 from the merger between former competitors Noos and NC Numericable networks. Numericable Group SA was founded in Aug ...

, because they lost their exclusivity exemption because of the launch of

SFR SFR (; ''Société française du radiotéléphone'', ) is a French telecommunications company. As of December 2015, it had 21.9 million customers in Metropolitan France for mobile services, and provided 6.35 million households with high-spee ...

fiber offers with Numericable TV bouquets. Since 19 March 2019, all

Canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...

bouquets are available on SFR TV cable and fiber platform. In August 2018, Canal+ launched a premium channel totally dedicated to humor for the African market (on

Canal+ Afrique Canal+ Afrique is an African version of Canal+, available mainly in the francophone countries of Central and West Africa, as well as some non-francophone countries such as Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Ghana and Cape Verde. The Service is broadcast off t ...

channel 5).

References

External links

Official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Comedie+ Television stations in France Television channels and stations established in 1997 French-language television stations Comedy television networks MultiThématiques 1997 establishments in France