“The campaign is not a show that will attract the general public” – 20 Minutes

Once again, a card from the big screen is confirmed on the small one. The broadcast of What have we done to God again? by TF1 on Sunday April 3, brought 7.6 million viewers to the first channel, according to Médiamétrie. Or 34.6% audience share, far ahead of the other channels, during a precious time slot, Sunday evening. Will TF1 repeat such a score next week? The first channel made people talk by programming, on Sunday April 10, Les Visiteurs, by Jean-Marie Poirée, from 9:30 p.m.… That is to say an hour and a half after the result of the first round of the presidential election. Shortened, the traditional electoral evening, during which editorialists and politicians follow one another on the set to comment on the results of the live vote. They and they will, but only from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. “As the leading channel, we consider that in the hot part of an hour and a half, we may have given all the facts, results, reactions, comments”, justified Thierry Thuillier, deputy director general of the news division of TF1, with Agence France Presse. Then, the election evening will continue on LCI, the TF1 group’s non-stop news channel. including legislative,” noted Thierry Thuillier. He also mentioned “uses, [d] your tastes and [d] viewer expectations [ayant] evolved”, due to “the multiplication of the offer” on the news channels. Should we see in this choice a symbol of the citizens’ lack of interest in the elections, to mirror the abstention rates announced as record ? Could this programming be a message sent by TF1 to the political world? For Isabelle Veyrat-Masson, research director at the CNRS and member of the CERLIS laboratory (Centre for research on social links), this unprecedented choice is above all strategic. “I think there are two explanations: first, it is from TF1 a certain boost given to LCI, which is struggling to overtake the other non-stop news channels in a competitive context . The second would be the feeling that this campaign is not interesting, not fun. This is not a show that will attract the general public of TF1. “The researcher also notes that BFM TV is “less committed than LCI or CNews” in handling the campaign. “Of the three, it’s the most commercially oriented channel, its main motivation is to build audiences. This lessened treatment “shows that the programmers realize that the campaign will not have an audience. “Economic choiceAn observation shared by TF1, therefore. Five years ago, on April 23, 2017, the evening of the first round of the presidential election, the channel had gathered 5.7 million viewers, for a 21.5% audience share. Election night, hosted by Anne-Claire Coudray and Gilles Bouleau, ended around 10:35 p.m. France 2, whose live broadcast ended around midnight, had done better, with 24.6% of viewers. The Visitors, for their part, brought together nearly 8 million viewers during their last appearance on TF1, in April 2020. Admittedly, the French were then confined. But already, in 2016, they had been 7.2 million to follow the adventures of Jacquouille. A guaranteed success, therefore, and an assumed economic choice. “By programming Les Visiteurs, TF1 is making an economical choice,” summarizes Isabelle Veyrat-Masson. This may shock, but we can also find it legitimate, insofar as TF1 is a commercial channel. And television is a show. “No novelty However, this show, believes the researcher, is not interesting enough this year. “There is less suspense than in 2017,” argued TF1 after announcing that it would shorten its election night. “In a campaign, as in fiction, you need interesting characters, suspense, reversals. For the moment, this is a repeat of 2017, less well, because there is no more novelty, analyzes Isabelle Veyrat-Masson. With the Macron phenomenon, the previous campaign was extraordinary. Even the public service channels had played the spectacle game. It was like a reality TV show, with its confessions, its miscellaneous facts… This time, the campaign seems to be a foregone conclusion. Zemmour changed things a bit for a while, but it didn’t last. Moreover, the campaign has been pushed into the background by “such important events on the front line: the war in Ukraine, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Each time, events can tint the campaign. But I don’t remember having seen this configuration before”, notes Isabelle Veyrat-Masson, for whom the “uninteresting” aspect of the campaign “justifies” that TF1 does not feel like spending too much time there, during an “important evening for the audiences”. However, believes the researcher “if something totally unexpected happens during the first round, I think Les Visiteurs will fall by the wayside and that TF1 will adapt its antenna”.