If you spent your confinement with children, you probably had to find yourself in front of France 4 watching “La Maison Lumni”. From March 23, 2020, the public service decides to launch a program to fill the closure of schools. With Alex Goude in charge every day, National Education teachers allowed the children to revise the official programs.
With the reopening of schools, France Télévisions chooses to pause Lumni programs and is content to rebroadcast old programs and leave them on their Internet platform. Never mind, Alex Goude decides to bring together the teachers and create “The taste of knowledge”, broadcast every Sunday at 10 am on YouTube. He explained to 20 minutes the concept of this program and its relations with France Télévisions.
Why repeat lessons with the teachers of “Lumni”?
When France Télévisions stopped “Lumni”, they rebroadcast the old shows for a year and a half. After a while, the children knew all the classes. I was getting a lot of messages asking me why it stopped. With the teachers, we said to ourselves that if we wanted something new, we had to do it ourselves.
What audience is “The Taste of Knowledge” aimed at?
To the whole family! I think that below seven years is a little early for the level of the courses that we offer. But there is no age limit. Joint parent-child listening works very well because on all the courses there are several levels of reading. Everyone will learn something. Myself, I learn billions of tricks every time.
Why choose to return to the Internet and YouTube?
The real difference with television is interactivity. We have direct feedback from Internet users. We segment the program so they can watch only the sequence that interests them. And on Sundays at 10 a.m., we are live so there is no fixed duration imposed, we can go over if necessary to answer all the questions we are asked. And to reach young people, you have to go to the platforms they use, and it’s less and less television.
Are you able to make money with this format?
Not yet. We have a deal with the teachers: from the first penny, we will share everything fairly. With the growing success of the show, brands are interested in us and we enter into negotiations to find sponsors. We’re probably not going to make a fortune, but that’s not the goal. We want to create an intelligent and human program for children.
After two months of broadcasting, what conclusions do you draw for the moment?
We’re already having a blast doing this show. Personally, I’m learning a lot of things because I’m the editor, the director, I launch the videos and the skins… For all of us, it’s really the recess of the week. We have more and more success. The average watch time is 25 minutes, which is very rare on YouTube.
Was it revenge on France Télévisions which had stopped your show?
I wouldn’t say that we saw it as revenge, but every day during the confinement we came to shoot “Lumni” because we were told that it was our mission. And we did it with pleasure. When it ended, it was very difficult to live. Especially since France 4 was sure to disappear and this educational mission, with Culturebox, surely saved it.
Do you have other projects apart from the “Goût du savoir”?
I’m going to shoot my first movie this summer in Las Vegas. I have my project to bring back my show “Menopause” as well as to create a new show in the United States with France as a theme and many French artists. And I continue the Live with Micromania which are a very big success.