2022 was a prosperous year for Quebec TV, thanks to series that knew how to think outside the box, such as One way ticket, Pet or Before the crash. The prime-time success of the dailies Indefensible and Status proved false those who predicted the death of traditional television. This may be the big surprise of 2022. What more can we expect now for 2023? We asked the question to two personalities who have marked the small screen in the last year, Marie-Andrée Labbé and Éric Bruneau.
When the latter and his spouse, Kim Lévesque-Lizotte, sent the script forBefore the crash to the producers, then to the broadcasters, they felt very alone in believing that their series could attract a large audience. They were told that their proposal was too narrow, that it could never reach a large audience on television. But the skeptics will have been confounded, Before the crash turned out to be one of the big hits of the fall, both on the platforms and on the air.
It may be there, the lesson to be learned from 2022, according to Éric Bruneau. “The audience is there. I see it like never before. And they are capable of taking it, people should not be underestimated. We must continue our momentum by being even more daring,” says the man who was also in the distribution of The night when Laurier Gaudreault woke upanother bold series that found its audience on Club Illico.
I think it’s by trying as much as possible not to imitate the Americans that our television excels. We don’t have their means anyway. How many times have we tried to reproduce programs that were successful in the United States! Honestly, I can’t remember a successful example.
Obviously, platforms are now part of the equation. But this is not a reason to ignore the public still faithful to traditional television, believes the actor and screenwriter. But above all, it should not be an alibi to try to pastiche big-budget series on American platforms, adds Marie-Andrée Labbé, the author of the daily Status.
“I think it’s by trying as much as possible not to imitate the Americans that our television excels. We don’t have their means anyway. How many times have we tried to reproduce programs that were successful in the United States! Honestly, I do not remember a successful example, ”she underlines, wishing for a Quebec TV that is more free from foreign formats for 2023.
Less unnecessary competition
With Statusthe author Marie-Andrée Labbé successfully succeeded this year to Luc Dionne and his social phenomenon District 31. This medical series, which she writes almost alone, would rally more than a million Quebecers each evening in front of their television sets at 7 p.m. A feat that confirms the place in our television ecosystem of daily newspapers, which the general public can of course catch up on the platforms, but which are essentially designed for traditional listening.
“The platforms are here to stay. Myself, I no longer stop what I’m doing to listen to a program. I prefer to watch it later […] But I think we are seeing a certain rebalancing. We are coming out of the era of television force-feeding. We have all abused it and we realize that it is not good for our mental health ”, notes Marie-Andrée Labbé, to whom we also owe the comedy Without an appointment.
But who says traditional television also says battle of ratings, war of networks. Marie-Andrée Labbé is sorry. Status paid for it since TVA programmed Indefensible at the same time. The competition between the two daily news from two major channels made the headlines of the media at the start of the school year in September.
“It was not an easy period. There was an exaggeration. We were forced to be against each other, as if people had to choose, as if there was going to be a winner and a loser. It’s a fake competition that serves journalists much more, and it didn’t help anyone in the TV industry. In the end, the public embraced both shows and made it clear that there was no competition,” says Marie-Andrée Labbé.
No political will
If there is competition, it is with American platforms, from which Quebec television must constantly stand out, believes Éric Bruneau. Apart from a few acquisitions here and there, Quebec content is struggling to find its way onto the Netflix and Disney+ of this world. This, while the adoption of Bill C-11, supposed to expand the regulatory powers of the CRTC over the giants of the Web, is dragging on in the Senate.
“Yes, the platforms are wonderful, it allows for greater audacity on TV. But we also need a political will to ensure that these big platforms, which come here, produce with us. We must not reproduce the Plan Nord on TV by telling these big companies that they can come here with nothing in front of them. That would be the best way to kill yourself. The fight is not over and we must continue to fight “, pleads the one who will share the poster with Louis Morissette this winter in the series Turn. Double fault on the waves of Noovo.