There’s room for two, everyone’s talking about it

The TV community has been talking about this for a week: how will TVA succeed in setting up and propelling its own big Sunday discussion board, which will face the Everybody talks about it of Radio-Canada in exactly one month?

This is a bold decision by TVA. Risky, even. Guy A. Lepage has been serving the Radio-Canadian Mass for 18 years at 8 p.m. and his followers rarely deviate from their listening habits, although devotion has waned for some time.

It is Stéphan Bureau who inherits this daredevil, but super intriguing mandate, to animate tough debates immediately after Star Academy. The transition between these two worlds is also likely to surprise, to say the least.

Yes, there is room for a second news-driven talk show on mainstream television. The competition draws everyone in the industry to the top, and it is the public who wins.

Also, Stéphan Bureau can conduct interviews on a ton of varied subjects, his long track record amply proving it.

Now, how will this novelty of TVA, scheduled to start April 17 at 9 p.m., unfold on our screens? Rumor has it a French platter – consider We are not in bed by Laurent Ruquier – with Captain Bureau surrounded by rotating panelists. TVA will produce this 60-minute show internally.

Of course, behind-the-scenes noise affects many Quebecor Media headliners (QUB, The Montreal JournalI, VAT) around Stéphan Bureau. I contacted several of them, including Richard Martineau, Sophie Durocher, Mario Dumont, Denise Bombardier, Geneviève Pettersen or Joseph Facal, and no one commented or replied, except Mathieu Bock-Côté who is still in France for a few months and which will therefore not participate in the first four issues scheduled for this spring. Marie-Claude Barrette, star of the morning slot of TVA, was not approached.

With Stéphan Bureau at the helm, TVA will certainly recover viewers who lean more to the right and who complain about the “go-left” trend, I use their words, taken by Everybody talks about it. It is logical and legitimate.

But what I understand is that TVA wants a clash of ideas on its antenna. We want things to stir in the studio, for opinions to collide, for us to hear voices that don’t resonate elsewhere. Therefore, analysts and guests should not all think the same way. Hence the importance of drawing on the left as much as on the right in the spectrum of ideas.

And like Everybody talks about it plays live, TVA has practically no choice but to broadcast live as well. Otherwise, the pre-recorded episodes risk appearing faded or outdated if ever the news moves as it has moved in the last two years.

What is surprising in TVA’s strategy for Stéphan Bureau’s project is the planned broadcast time, ie 9 p.m. TVA is not used to trailing behind its adversaries, on the contrary. When a competing channel shows up with a hot show, say at 7:00 p.m., TVA beats it to 6:30 p.m. to bypass it. This aggressive strategy has always been effective.

Remember the long galas of Star Academy at the time of Julie Snyder. They started at 7:30 p.m. and ran until 10:30 p.m. to prevent the exodus of viewers to Everybody talks about it. TVA even encouraged Julie Snyder to smash her stopwatch so as not to give in to her rival in the ratings war.

Speaking of Star Academy, the galas will bring 1.5 million pairs of eyes to Stéphan Bureau and his collaborators. But how many will stay tuned? Difficult to predict, because TVA has always presented lighter varieties on Sunday evenings.

In 18 years of Everybody talks about it, this is the first time that TVA has ventured into the arena of public affairs to attack, on equal terms, the high mass of Guy A. Lepage. It’s a big cockfight that’s getting ready. And it’s very exciting.

Last summer, when the ombudsman of Radio-Canada blamed Stéphan Bureau for his interview deemed complacent with the French infectiologist Didier Raoult, we felt a form of outstretched hand from the tenors of Quebecor Media to the host of Of course from 95.1 FM. Several of them, including Mathieu Bock-Côté, Richard Martineau and Sophie Durocher, then came to the defense of Bureau as if they were preparing, without knowing it, its passage to the west.

I really like Stephan Bureau. I like his intelligence, his vast general culture and his vivacity. I like less when he plays nono on the air (“I’m uneducated, forgive me!”) or when he sticks to his positions.

The biggest pitfall that awaits him at TVA is to pilot a program that would define itself as an anti-Everybody talks about itlooking for the next woke to demolish. It would be a mistake to camp in a position of opposition.

Stéphan Bureau is a brilliant animator. He knows the danger associated with these types of traps. I spoke to him on Tuesday afternoon. After spending the last five months in Arizona, he was racing down a highway in New Mexico, heading for Montreal, where he hasn’t set foot since November.

On the phone, he seemed relaxed. He could not confirm the details of his project to TVA, but did not deny anything either. Next week, he will be able to reveal everything, he told me. And you know Stéphan Bureau. He’s not one to crawl or ask for permission.