This might sound a little odd, but my husband and I were talking last night and we were wondering about french tv. When I visited Paris in HS I remember the stations to be quite racy with things you would not see in the US but the last time we went there we noticed it was clean. Has there been new regluations on tv programming there or is it possible that some hotels (this case the Le Grand IC) block out certain local stations? The second option would make more sense especially in hotels that frequent to families with children visiting.

There has never been anything racy about French television that I can recall. It is suitable for the whole family, and if anything, it's rather boring.

I do recall American television being incredibly parochial, though.

We found that late night to early morning there are some X-rated shows they broadcast. I guess it depends on whether or not the hotel has those channels available.

TV in most of euope is in fact a little more "racy" than it is in the US (nudity, sex and naughty language) - unless you're buying the playboy channel. On the other hand - they keep a much closer watch on violence than we do - and a lot of gory/gruesome things we show they don;t.

I guess it's just an overall cultural difference - whether you prefer sex or murder as entertainment. (I think the theory is that it's more normal/natural since almost everyone has a sex life and very few of us actually murder/dismember people).

I was amused to see the difference between how Americans advertise soap/bathing products than the French! The French wash more than their arms!

I don't think any hotel would block out standard French channels, that would be pretty strange (eg, TF1, France 2-4, ARTE, M6, CANAL+, etc.). You can usually find racy stuff in any city on some cable channels, and some hotels have more extensive cable channels than others. I don't think regular French channels are that racy (many are pretty dry and boring, a bunch of talking heads for an hour). Maybe there is a little more nudity in some situations (ie, soap ads) compared to US, but it's not racy, it's advertising soap. Perhaps things seemed racier to you in high school, or just some ads like that are what you mean, or maybe you just weren't watching the same things. There is no standard French channel that I would consider very shocking, and I don't think a hotel would block any std French channel because of children.