You were impatient to see the mustache of Ted Lasso, which has just returned for a third season on Apple TV+? You are passionate about Yellowstone, for the fate of the Dutton family on their ranch in Montana? You’re kidding yourself thinking back to the cult lines of Schitt’s Creek ? If you answered yes to at least one of these three questions and you live in France, you are a special case. These series are among the cult and successful works in the United States, their country of origin, while they do not thrill the crowds on this side of the Atlantic.
These examples are not isolated. Take This Is Us, For example. If it moved a small part of the French public who followed it on Canal + (or downloaded the episodes illegally), it flopped with the greatest number when it was broadcast on M6. Audience scores were so disappointing that the channel canceled it. How to explain such a finding in our country, which has been largely nourished and fed with series made in the USA for the past sixty years?
Cultural differences
First track: cultural differences. “Most French viewers are not always familiar with the American model. There is not necessarily an attachment and understanding of the American system on which these series are based. It is therefore difficult for him to project himself into it”, advances to 20 minutes Julie Escurignan, teacher-researcher at the EMLV Paris management school.
Yellowstone weaves its fabric on American politics and on the past history of the country, certain elements of which are misunderstood or unknown to most French people. Same thing for This Is Us, which follows the daily life of several generations of an American family and whose intimate story is confronted with historical facts with which we are sometimes unfamiliar. “As a result, we understand it less,” continues Julie Escurignan. This is what makes it easier to follow the adventures of the protagonists of More beautiful life because we can project ourselves and understand. This is why France sometimes adapts certain foreign series. » I promise you thus freely transposes the scenarios of This Is Us in a very Franco-French context: it is no longer a question of California and Pittsburgh, but of the Southwest and Paris. And it works: the series found its audience on TF1 with an average of 4.04 million viewers during the first season.
Another explanation for the French disenchantment: writing. Welcome to Shitt’s Creek relies on a lot of jokes and puns that fail to pass the translation stage. The French can also be hermetic to certain comic codes arousing the hilarity of the Americans. If laughter is specific to human beings, giggles do not necessarily overcome these obstacles. “Perhaps we catch on more easily with the humor of our European compatriots, American humor is really different. Either we like it or we don’t like it, ”underlines the teacher-researcher.
Too many platforms, too many choices?
Finally, it must be said that streaming platforms do not all have the same success in France. Some like Apple TV+ are less well known, while Netflix is very well established and Amazon Prime Video is also doing well.
“The platforms are necessarily a condition for the circulation of these productions”, indicates Julie Escurignan. According to her, “Netflix is more easily able to reach an international audience. There is an approach to the platform that pushes a little more to watch different things, like Chinese or Korean series that work very, very well, whereas culturally, we are also very far from all that. Netflix’s algorithm pushes things we like but also pushes us to discover new things, that’s the strength of the catalog on offer. »
These sites are at war with each other over the distribution and production of increasingly qualitative content, to reach the widest international audience. This multiplication encourages “the public to make choices because people have a limited budget”. Because yes, discovering certain series often involves putting your hand in your pocket. This also pushes “the platforms to have more and more qualitative and different productions to keep the public. It clearly plays into the influence they want to have on the audience, ”explains Julie Escurignan.
Finally, do not minimize word of mouth. For the researcher, even if certain things work in the United States, “if we don’t have relatives who watch and who tell us to watch, there is little chance that we will be interested in them. What influences us first is our close circle, and not critics or people in the business,” she concludes.