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The history of radio and television public service broadcasting (PSB) in France presents a singularly French situation??”one that has been dominated by some dire political and economic warnings. In the political sphere, the dependence of French radio and television on the executive was reflected particularly by the concept of the “Voice of France,” and the 1982 predications about independent PSB have been difficult to substantiate. In the economic sphere, the privatization of TF1 in 1986 is a unique illustration (with no European equivalent) of the triumph of a new market rationality, expressing a correspondingly severe undervaluation of issues inherent in PSB. Entry into the digital age carries a number of these inherited problems.