Hacker News Reader

That's exactly what they did and where they got most of their customers from.

Those 'free viewing' (canal+ en clair) probably had one of the biggest impact on french comedy TV culture ever. Some shows of that era are still on AFAIK.

View on HN

For the football games, they turned on the encryption shortly after the game started. This created the expression "but en clair" ("unencrypted goal") where a team would score so early that the encryption was still off.

> biggest impact on french comedy TV culture ever.

And french politics. French politics in the '90s and '00s wouldn't be the same without Les Guignols de l'Info.

We had Les Guinols in Spain too, in the same channel.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com