It is on Monday, October 14th 1985 at 6.45 p.m. that begins Santa Barbara in France, on channel TF1 (the first private network in France), one year and a few months after its beginnings on NBC. Thus programmed in access prime-time at 6.45 p.m., just before the not less famous Wheel of Fortune, the show carries off a great success at once, with points until 8 million televiewers ! But already, a dark point : the channel decides to air the 45 minutes episodes per half, in order to present to its televiewers only half-episodes each evening.

In September 1992, first shock : TF1 looks for renovating its image (and its ratings !) and only swears by the French AB Productions sitcoms. Thus bye to Santa Barbara on the evening, the show is announced at 2.30 p.m., but finally in its original size of 45 minutes. But the dissatisfied televiewers succeed in being heard and the show refinds its schedule, at 6.45 p.m.. Only, the gift-effect does not last and TF1 ends up pushing back Santa Barbara at 4.30 p.m., except on Wednesdays where the episode is replaced by programs for children.

Obviously, the ratings start to fall and the show is relegated at 11.30 a.m. and after that at 10.10 a.m. on March 18 1993. The interruptions during the school holidays not arranging anything, the show is not going very well anymore and is purely and simply cancelled on June 24 1994 at the end of the first half of episode 1039.

Meanwhile, the Monaco channel TMC resumes an airing of the show since the 1st episode from October 18th 1993 : at first complete episodes, then half-daily episodes (like TF1) from February 14th 1994. TMC stops after 259 episodes on June 16th 1995.

On March 02 1995, TF1 gets back Santa Barbara from its cardboards for an intensive airing of the show : two 45 minutes episodes on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, but... as from episode 918, already aired one year before ! The public does not follow this aberrant idea and boycotts this (re)airing, which stops at the end of the following week.

The hope to see one day the following episodes of the show on TF1 were thining down until on December 19 2000, the new cabled channel TF6 regives its luck to the show by taking it again where TF1 had stopped in 1994. At the beginning aired from Monday to Friday at 12.10 p.m., Santa Barbara is finally programmed in daily 45 minutes doses. But finally relegated at 10.35 a.m., then 08.10 a.m. on April 30 2001, the show is again put on rations of one half-episode by day as TF1 was doing it years ago. The time of a last month of airing and, the hapiness already disappears : TF6 decides to stop the airing of the show on June 1st 2001 at episode 1150, whereas there are still near 1.000 unaired episodes to discover in France...