“Star Academy”: The wind of nostalgia blowing on TF1 also sweeps away advances in labor law – 20 Minutes

The credits composed by Bob Sinclar did not take long to be reactivated in the minds of the discovery of the thirteen new candidates who joined the new season of Star Academy last Saturday. TF1 made a winning move with the return of its cult program from the 2000s: nearly 4.8 million viewers for the launch of the show and daily newspapers which now prance to 1.65 million viewers. castle of Dammarie-les-Lys, without their mobile phone, the star academicians are filmed by 60 cameras. It is possible to follow their discussions, activities and live lessons via the Internet every day – except Saturdays when they rehearse on the prime set and Sunday mornings when they rest – from 8 a.m. to midnight. The only possible contact with the outside world: a minute’s call a day to their family made with the emblematic red telephone, under the stairs. the announcement of the nominees. But with this pleasure comes its share of questions. How is this return to the 2000s framed, in a hyperconnected society where the rules regarding the work of reality TV candidates have evolved? 20 Minutes conducted the investigation.Back to basicsIf current reality TV programs such as Les Marseillais, La villa des coeursbroken or Objectif Rest du Monde are far from the canons of the genre that are the Loft or Star Academy, we have been witnessing since summer 2022 to a step back in terms of the regulations for these emissions. To guarantee the most authentic program, W9 has for example decided to withdraw the candidates of its program Les Cinquante from their mobile phone. Same thing with Star Ac’. “For the moment, we see that it’s working rather well in terms of audience and that’s normal because the show is remobilizing its codes from the time and all the nostalgia that there are around, comments Constance Vilanova, freelance journalist who works on subjects related to reality TV. It allows you to catch up with people who had completely given up on reality TV since the end of Secret Story. But curiosity also attracts new audiences. “Some of my students told me that they had subscribed to MyTF1 Max to follow live when they were not born during the first edition of the show”, laughs Virginie Spies, semiologist and professor at the University of Avignon, who dissects the media on TikTok. “Television has always changed, genres adapt, change and evolve, but here we have the impression of going back to the basics of reality TV. “Practices tested by case law Back to basics, okay, but the rules have changed… Since a decision of the Court of Cassation in 2009, requalifying the terms of the participation of candidates in The Island of Temptation, the companies that produce the reality shows are forced to offer a work contract to the participants. In the process, TF1 announced the end of its live 22h/24 for the third season of Secret Story, launched the same year. “With an employment contract, employees have the right to rest, to 35 hours, they have the right to strike…”, specified in 2006 to Liberation the lawyer Jérémie Assous, who then defended several candidates of the first generation of emissions . Today, productions are very discreet on this subject, and candidates are often subject to confidentiality clauses. We therefore do not know what contracts govern the participation of new academicians. “La Star Ac’ comes back at a time when reality TV has become more professional. It has become a sector in its own right with its excesses, we have seen the recent problem with Magali Berdah. The show is back with a sort of promise of moral redemption,” points out Maureen Lepers, a researcher who works on the political and socio-cultural issues of media representations. “Labour law had killed the reality show of confinement,” recalls his Constance Vilanova side. Even though the participants live their lives simply under the eyes of the cameras, each time they are turned on, they participate in producing content for the channel which then uses their image to generate revenue. At the time, several concepts were based on this promiscuity. “This context and the permanent presence of cameras often put the candidates on edge and favored clashes”, specifies the journalist. “If at the time, the producers could say that they did not know the legal framework, today today they know that they have a responsibility in terms of employment contracts, employee health and respect for well-being at work”, insists Nina Tarhouny, doctor of law specializing in psychosocial risks at work. 10 p.m. However, TF1 is once again offering viewers the opportunity to “experience the daily life of academicians, from waking up to going to bed through the moments of life that make the salt of this program”, all “in real time” on its website. and for a €2.99 subscription. Unlike the Star Academy of the 2000s, the live stream is interrupted three times during the day, production responded to 20 Minutes. Once during the day and twice to guarantee the breaks imposed by Arcom, the audiovisual policeman, on the candidates. But for Nina Tarhouny, the context in which the candidates are immersed does not allow them to take advantage of the time to rest to which they are entitled as employees: “Even if the cameras are sometimes cut off, this does not prevent the participants from potentially exchanging with the production on the content of the program or rehearsing the one of their performances for example. »A private life but without a telephone Article L.1121-1 of the Labor Code specifies that the right to privacy must therefore be guaranteed to the employee and, by extension, to the candidate. Discussions “too private about their lives” between academicians can also cause sound cuts in the live stream on MyTF1 Max, specifies Endemol. But what about the withdrawal of the mobile phone? For Virginie Spies, this rule contributes to “cutting academics off from the world” so that they are “focused on their work and their artistic development”, and not on the comments they may receive online. This mechanism has existed for a long time. , for example in Koh-Lanta. “The employer could possibly justify this rule for the good performance of the program and by virtue of compliance with the rules of the competition”, estimates Nina Tarhouny. There are many professions where the boss asks his employees not to use their mobile phone during their working hours. “But normally an employee has rest times, daily hours when he is not at work, where he can use his mobile phone without constraints. “For Sadry Porlon, “the production can, for example, invoke the notion of “relative isolation” since the participants still have access to the outside during primes and via their call minute with the red telephone”. For him, this context allows the production to introduce a compensation for this restriction. Thus, the show does not consider depriving its candidates of a fundamental freedom. “She protects herself from the start by indicating in black and white in the contract that the ban on mobile phones is an important rule in her eyes and makes sure that it is accepted by the candidates when they sign the said contract. The candidate is free not to subscribe to it by refusing to take part in the program… “Agreed rules? Faithful to this type of broadcast, Constance Vilanova believes that it is in the interest of the candidates to comply with the rules of the game “ and to participate in the storytelling that surrounds them”. The new generation of academicians like the old dream of glory and to follow in the footsteps of Jenifer, the first winner of the program. “Candidates who rebel are often frowned upon by production and the public,” adds the journalist. To oppose the settlement is to risk jeopardizing his potential career in music. other reality shows, ”says Maureen Lepers. This is also one of the arguments cited by Rémi Faure, director of flow programs at TF1. He bets on he bets on the “values” of telecrochet, starting with “work”, he underlined during the press conference. it realizes the dream of the candidates and that at the end of the day, they have a career”, continues Maureen Lepers who observes that many professions based on the vocation of the employees make “sacrifice” a norm. The context but also the issue involved a biased relationship between the candidate, employee, and the production, employer, when signing the contract. “This is what we typically find in many companies when we promise employees a career development to make them workable at a given moment, deplores Nina Tarhouny. Here, they are promised fame, media spin-offs…”Guilty pleasureIf the production company is walking on eggshells with the ambiguous work situation it imposes on academics, it is now playing a balancing act “between legal risk and the ‘audience of the program, which generates income,’ indicates Sadry Porlon. Nina Tarhouny deplores for her part this comeback of a format that she thought was buried. “The fact that people are watching does not justify the working conditions that are imposed on candidates. When you buy from Amazon, does it justify the working conditions of the employees? I don’t think so,” she concludes.