Télévision de Radio-Canada, often simply Radio-Canada, is the main French language Television service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It is the only Francophone network in Canada to broadcast over-the-air in all Canadian provinces, although its programming is generally directed at residents of Quebec as opposed to francophones outside Quebec.
Generally considered more populist than its English counterpart CBC Television, this network has certainly been the more successful of the two, as it does not face such immense competition from American networks. During the 2004-05 television season it ranked close behind Quebec's top television network, TVA, with a resurgent schedule including offbeat sitcom Les Bougon and Talk show Tout le monde en parle.
With this success, however, have come accusations of Dumbing down. Tout le monde en parle replaced the long-running Sunday night arts series Les Beaux Dimanches. Even more recently, Radio-Canada moved its supper-hour newscasts (in Quebec and Ontario only) to 5:00 p.m. to make room for a new Talk show fronted by Véronique Cloutier at 6:00 p.m. While Radio-Canada's newscasts had already fallen well behind those of TVA and often even TQS, the resulting uproar suggests that the change may be reversed by next season.
News programming is anchored by Le Téléjournal, which airs nightly at 10:00 p.m.; on weeknights it includes a current affairs segment, Le Point. Local newscasts, which air during the lunch and supper hours, now also carry the Téléjournal name, i.e. Le Téléjournal Montréal.
CBC/Radio-Canada also operates le Réseau de l'information (RDI), Canada's first French-language news channel.
During the 1970s, as a result of the federal government's commitment to bilingualism and the Official Languages Act, SRC expanded into markets throughout English Canada building stations, or at least rebroadcast transmitters, in every province to distribute its signal. These stations serve every major market in French and English Canada market, with privately-owned affiliates serving smaller markets in Quebec. Unlike CBC Television affiliates, which often have several alternative programming sources, Radio-Canada affiliates are effectively constrained to carry network programming throughout the day, excluding local and regional programming and commercials.