From “optimistic bet” to audience success, the creators of the show tell

“I didn’t believe it until the last minute,” confided to 20 minutes Julien Bancilhon, who swaps his psychologist hat for that of editor-in-chief when he is surrounded by journalists from the Papotin. Since its beginnings in 1989, the newspaper written by journalists with an autism spectrum disorder has been of interest to television. The cameras of several channels had already lingered there during reports while the editorial staff collaborated with The Circle of Midnight, on France 2, in 1992. But nobody had envisaged that the meetings of these journalists whose questions make sometimes laugh, sometimes blush with personalities of all kinds would be so welcomed by the public. “There had been several attempts by television people to do something like this, but it had never succeeded in convincing enough,” continues the editor-in-chief.

Nevertheless, Papotin meetings, whose distribution attracted 3.3 million curious people from their first issue with Gilles Lellouche, i.e. 20% market share. This score was almost equaled during the interview with Virginie Efira, raising the counter to 3.24 million viewers (17.2% of PdM). Unsurprisingly, the meeting between the Papotin and Emmanuel Macron allowed the program to smash its record with 4.54 million French men and women in front of the post (22.5% of PdM). “This program is the result of a collaboration between France 2 and people who have made a creative and daring bet and when we win a bet like that, we are very happy”, rejoices for 20 minutes Nicolas Daniel, magazine director for France Télévisions.

The perseverance of Nakache and Toledano

It all started in 2011. As usual, the Papotin interviews the personalities who make the news. After the film’s release Untouchables, Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache lend themselves to the interview game. “There is almost an emotional shock where you hear the questions you had never heard […] which reveal a little more to us”, confided Éric Toledano at France Interduring the launch of Papotin meetings. The director duo sees this meeting as an opportunity to reinvent the genre. “It took time because they did not have the contacts to do that on TV”, rewinds Julien Bancilhon.

“Toledano and Nakache contacted us, Tristan Carné and me, telling us: ‘What is happening in Papotin is great and there is a way to pay tribute to the work that these journalists do.”, explains Clément Chovin, the show’s producer. Curious, the two TV professionals immerse themselves in one of the encounters between the editor of the newspaper and a guest. It is 2021 and they are blown away by “a rather extraordinary moment” whose intensity makes them feel “all the flavor of the best of encounters”.

While the Papotin perceives that something concrete is brewing around their meetings, the journalists and their supervisors “don’t expect much”. “We’ve always been on our way,” recalls Julien Bancilhon, specifying that television is not “their universe” since the vocation of the newspaper is the cultural project that accompanies it.

“They thought they were formatting us”

Quickly, the producer duo made a first attempt. Julien Bancilhon takes on the role of host and forms a line with some editorial journalists facing a guest. “We knew we didn’t have the trick but we had to do things together”, justifies Clément Chovin with hindsight. “Television people, like all seasoned people, arrived with pre-established representations and that did not immediately stick with our newspaper”, judge Julien Bancilhon. This first shot in the water based on formatted exchanges and artificial lights is inconclusive. “I think they thought they could come with their expertise to train us but they quickly understood that they had to be with us. »

The tandem takes part in editorial meetings for two hours each Wednesday. Little by little, they get to know each journalist, the realities that cross them and their personalities.

Back from filming a documentary in the Amazon, director Henri Poulain joined the adventure in January 2022 at the request of the directors. “We were fans of what he did,” admits Clément Chovin, emphasizing his colleague’s talent for bringing out the truth of individuals based on shots in real light. “They had made a few attempts but still couldn’t translate the Papotin as a television object”, adds the director. If the adventure interests him, he insists: you must not bring the Papotin in television but allow the Papotin to exist without doing anything about it. After two months of observation, an observation is essential to the director. “There is no filter Papotin so we had to be filterless too. » Sound engineers and cameramen will be on screen and there is no question of immersing journalists in a pre-fabricated neon or LED decor. “We went looking for a clear place where people could listen to each other and I fell in love with this large room at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris. »

A straightforward recipe

Like a cooking recipe, producers and director add and remove certain elements. Henri Poulain in turn attends several editorial conferences to identify what the program should focus on. “The first time, I said to myself that it was mission impossible because it’s going all over the place, it’s abundant and illegible. The second time, I was more attentive and I realized that each chatterbox has its own music, that everyone had to be distinguished. He then bet on a very broad general plan but especially on very large plans.

By reviewing a filmed meeting with Nicolas Sarkozy in 2015, the teams notice this suspended moment when the journalists come to greet the ex-president, seated while waiting for the interview to begin. “It took us a while to realize that it was part of the interview. That a president waits is not trivial, just like the fact that he can be approached freely. We wanted to find this spontaneity despite a fairly heavy device, ”explains Julien Bancilhon.

The second attempt with the journalist Emmanuel Chain as a guest will be more conclusive. “We realized that our previous tests showed how TV can sometimes distort, have a magnifying effect or crush. This time the method is bearing fruit. Papotin meetings are ready to see the light of day in a format “prepared but not written, where lots of unforeseen events feed the story”, insists the director.

“Moments of television never seen”

It remains to find the best landing strip for the program. With the pilot in hand, the producers set out to find a channel to broadcast Papotin meetings. “Since the time we worked and we told our journalists that we were preparing a TV show, I just hoped that it would happen somewhere”, specifies Julien Bancilhon.

If Canal+ gives signs of interest, the discussions will never really lead to the channel. “We did not know where we were going to go with this program but we knew that we had a moment of truth of great value”, insists Clément Chovin. When it presents the number zero to France Télévisions, the public service is interested “super quickly” in the project. “We quickly said to ourselves that it was going to be able to transform the way of interviewing personalities and that it was going to produce television moments that we had never seen”, confirms Nicolas Daniel.

remains to be accommodated Papotin meetings on one of the already loaded schedules of the public service channels. The director of France Télévisions magazines believes that the projects that bring differences are either “seen as obligations and broadcast late at night considering that they are not going to work”, or “they are carried very high […] to make them talk, at the risk of getting a bad audience”. The bosses of France Télévisions opt for the second option. Papotin meetings will have their specific and eventful box each month on France 2 at the end of the JT, a rather unprecedented programming for such a program. It’s the shock. “When it was announced to us, it was a lot of recognition and a very great joy but also a vertigo because it is a responsibility to impose oneself on viewers”, comments Clément Chovin. For him, “selling a program like this is always a matter of magic or miracle”. A miracle materialized by eight episodes all boxed of which five – and soon six – have already been unveiled.

something atypical

From the first broadcast, it was a success. “Often TV people compare with similar programs broadcast at similar times but there was no point of comparison”, recalls Nicolas Daniel. He evokes “explosive” audiences, slipping that given the success of the show, France Télévisions “rather wants it to continue” beyond the two episodes remaining to be broadcast.

“I was extremely surprised when I saw that just after the show, the Secretary of State for Disability and former Ministers of Health tweeted, commented”, reacts Julien Bancilhon. Henri Poulain recounts his pride in “making it possible to hear what is not heard elsewhere”. With journalists a thousand miles from worrying about the image they send back, he analyzes this success as proof “that when you are sincere and fair, you know how to speak to a large audience. »

“What is funny in this story is that we proposed to France Télé to show an editorial staff of atypical journalists, we made it an atypical TV program and we offered it an atypical place”, concludes Clément Chovin.

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