A week ago, at 7 a.m., Bruce Toussaint kicked off Good morning ! The TF1 morning show. A new daily meeting during the week with, we were told, an emphasis on news and the regions, the real “backbone” of the program. Seven days later, the host takes stock of 20 minutes on the new challenges, the first audiences and the “winks” with the competition…
How was this first week?
It allowed us to settle into this new setting and start working with this new team. It’s obviously a long-term job but we had the feeling of giving a kind of kick-off. Honestly, so far everything is going very well.
Are you going to make any adjustments, in terms of sequences or subjects to be covered?
When you launch a show like that, there’s a lot of work to set it up. Every day brings us its share of small modifications, adjustments… It could be in the conductor, the order of the sequences for example. The work that is done upstream is very important, we change things almost every day. It may be imperceptible for the viewer but, for us, it is important because we try to be in the best preparation and production conditions to then have on the air what seems to us to be the good balance between the chronicles, the newsThe guests…
We talked a lot about William Leymergie, former flagship presenter of “Télématin” on France 2, who came to welcome you by video for your premiere. How was this sequence prepared?
It was an idea we had a few days before the premiere. It was a wink, there was obviously malice but no malicious intent towards our competitors whose work I never stop saying that I respect and that I admire their success. We all get up, whatever our media and our channel, at 3 a.m., 4 a.m.… I think there is a kind of morning solidarity, even if we can be competitors. We all know each other. I have no animosity, on the contrary. It was a little wink, it wasn’t mean.
Was it still a little message sent to the competition?
No, that’s not how we built it. We looked for someone who embodied the morning and to tell you the truth, we considered other personalities who could be more linked to other professions. The name William Leymergie appeared because he embodies morning. We found it funny. It lasted two minutes and fifteen minutes and there were no other messages.
Guest in “What a time! ” SATURDAY, Thomas Sotto found that it was “a good idea on the part of TF1” but that William Leymergie “could have abstained”. How do you react to that?
I prefer to remember the first part of his remarks!
On the competition side, the Télématin team started its show last Monday by multiplying the “good evenings” addressed to their viewers. A wink or a snub, do you think?
What is the difference ? (laughs) I don’t know… I found it funny. So I would say a wink!
Do you think that a regular dialogue can take place between your two mornings?
One thing you need to know is that we know each other a little bit. I think I’m exactly the same age as Thomas Sotto. I met Marie Portolano very recently and she is a truly wonderful person. I really admire her fight against sexism, which she suffered a lot and denounced. We know each other, we communicate by SMS from time to time. I’m not sure we’ll do a joint show right away and that’s the goal. Or for a particular cause, as it has for a few years with common branches on the occasion of Sidaction. But these are things that are no longer done.
Last Monday, your morning premiere attracted 512,000 viewers. After a steady decline throughout the week, they fell to 235,000 on Friday, as reported Puremedias. How do you analyze these first audiences?
I would like to have a few weeks of perspective to be able to look a little more closely. If we look at the figures from last week, they are still very disparate so I find it difficult to draw conclusions from scores which are very different from one day to the next… And moreover on a meeting which just born, I would say maybe wait and see until the end of the month.
Do you still watch them?
Obviously, it’s part of our job, it’s very important. It’s not something that can be brushed aside. But in fact, it is not easy to analyze. It’s rare that there’s that much of a difference, so we’ll see. What interests me in the hearings is what happens compared to the previous offer. They are very sharp increases compared to the figure which preceded the arrival of the morning. It is indisputable and well above. It will take a little more time to draw conclusions.
This first week was marked by big political news with the government reshuffle. Would you have hoped for a calmer launch, or on the contrary, does it get you into the swing of things right away?
Frankly, I wasn’t expecting anything in particular at that level. You can’t order the news. She actually invited herself quite loudly last week, we’ll live with it. We ourselves have arguments to be able to deal with it, with the columnists who are around me and especially in the news meetings which are presented by Garance Pardigon. We know that there will regularly be strong news sequences and we are also well-equipped for that. Even if it means switching to a special edition, which could happen one day or another, in any case we are also preparing for this eventuality.
In an article, “Le Point” believes that the “processing of information suffers from sometimes a somewhat light overview” in your morning. What do you say to that?
We have chosen to offer an information event every half hour in the form of a big flash in which there are reports, live feeds… The essential news, in a way. In these eight minutes, around ten pieces of information are covered: international, economics, politics, sport… I don’t have the impression that we are skimming over anything, on the contrary. Furthermore, in addition to these newspapers, we have what we could call developments of information which are done with the columnists, I am thinking of Christophe Beaugrand, Maud Descamps… This [lundi] morning, for example, she did two columns, one on the tax cuts promised by Emmanuel Macron and the new government and the other on inflation. She is a true trained journalist, which is also the case for most columnists. I think that we have a fairly rich supply of information, that we respond to this demand.
Do you read what is said on your morning and you in the press?
When I don’t want to read there is always a kind soul to talk to me about it. I’m starting to feel a little thick-skinned and to be completely honest I’m still watching with a form of interest because I think you have to accept the criticism, you have to read it. There are sometimes interesting things to remember so I try to take it philosophically.
Does attracting a loyal audience for years to “Télématin” seem like an achievable challenge to you?
That’s not how we ask the question. Our objective is to create a new offer and therefore to have a new audience. It may be made up of people who previously did not watch television, and our initial studies show that this is largely the case. Then, it could be people who come from the competition but I don’t do a show every morning telling myself that I’m going to get viewers from so-and-so. This is not the objective at all, on the contrary. I think there are loyal viewers of TF1, 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. who don’t necessarily watch television in the morning and to whom we can ask them to come and join us for this new news event. It is rather in this direction that we work and that we can move forward, by trying to rely on our strengths and on the identity of the channel.