Stéphan Bureau, Marie-Claude Barrette and soon Denis Lévesque… Has launching a podcast become the solution of last resort for hosts who have been pushed off the airwaves? Everyone says no: podcasting is not a plan B while waiting to be offered a TV or radio project. On the contrary, they fully enjoy the total freedom that this format gives them, a thousand miles from the rigidity of the traditional media in which they have evolved their entire careers. All that remains is to ensure that their little business becomes financially viable.
“Our goal at the moment is just to be able to pay our rent. I wouldn’t have gotten into this if my old age wasn’t assured,” admits Denis Lévesque with his usual good nature, who arranged to meet at the Duty in a large empty room in a Soviet-style building in the north of the city.
It’s hard to believe, but this is where his new podcast will be recorded in a few weeks, the launch of which is scheduled for sometime in October. The subjects will have a “popular” dimension, like the late-night show that he hosted for 16 years at LCN. But the tone will be less formatted, less focused on burning news, he promises.
“At the end, at LCN, I was tired. It was COVID, and I still had to talk about it. There, it’s much freer. I can talk about whatever I want. I’m not limited in time either. On TV, you always have a clock in your head. When you ask a question and the guest’s response is flat, you hear in your head people changing channels. It is not at all the same logic in podcast. People expect to remain captive for a long time,” explains Denis Lévesque, who will seek to partner with sponsors in the coming weeks. A subscription model is not excluded either to generate income.
The American example
At 64, the host, winner of six Artis trophies, is starting from scratch, but that’s precisely what drives him. However, when his daughter first suggested he get into podcasting, Denis Lévesque was dubious. He had difficulty seeing how a podcast could end up being profitable on its own, without the machinery of a TV network or radio station behind it.
Then he took a closer look at what was happening in the United States. There, controversial figures like Bill O’Reilly, Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson achieved resounding success in podcasts after being ostracized by the news channels where they operated.
“One of the great upheavals of recent years is that there is a whole generation of older people who learned to use the Internet during the pandemic. Bill O’Reilly, for example, is 74 years old. The old people who listened to him on Fox News ended up following him when he left for podcast. People, who before were just connected to the TV, have learned to consume on their phone or on their computer,” notes Denis Lévesque.
Making broadcasters lie
Marie-Claude Barrette made the same bet when she launched her podcast Open your game last spring, after his show was removed from TVA programming. Five months later, the audience figures, both in audio and video, are beyond expectations. The host and producer is preparing to announce the arrival of sponsors in the adventure.
Not only is part of the older audience who followed her for nearly 15 years on TV there, but Open your game also allowed him to reach a younger audience. A nice snub to TVA, which did not renew its morning talk show, among other things, because it obtained disappointing results with younger age groups, the main target of advertisers.
“The extract from the podcast that has had the most success so far on social networks is a video in which Janette Bertrand talks about her relationship with death. […] On TV, if I had said that a 98-year-old woman talking about death could interest young people, we wouldn’t have believed it. On TV, the mentality is that if we make the guests younger, we will make the audience younger. But it’s not such an obvious equation,” concludes Marie-Claude Barrette.
She believes that there are lessons to be learned for traditional media in the phenomenal growth of podcasting that we are witnessing in Quebec. That being said, podcasting is a medium that operates according to its own logic, with its own codes. It would be a mistake to see it as a simple TV or radio show, without the imperatives of the timetable.
“TV is so formal that it inevitably imposes something that is not natural. I see it in my guests with Open your game. There are people I meet who can drop a coronation, for example, even though they would never have done that on TV. With the podcast, you have to forget the image, even when it’s filmed. You have to accept being in a bit of bad makeup and having a crooked hair,” says Marie-Claude Barrette, who admits to having gone through a period of adaptation at the start to get rid of her reflexes as a TV host. .
A refuge of freedom
Would she ever like to come back to the small screen? She is not closed to the idea, but she still needs to be offered an interesting project. A documentary ? Maybe. Traditional television still has a future, believes Marie-Claude Barrette, but she doubts that it will always have a place there.
“There will always be big shows, like Masked singers And Revolution, that television remains the only one capable of producing with its means. But low-budget shows, like the one I hosted, where we talked about health and psychology in the morning, that’s over! Radio-Canada pulled the plug a few years ago and at TVA, all that remains is Hi hello ! » she saddens, seeing in podcasting a way to continue to occupy this niche neglected by broadcasters.
Less than two months after learning that TVA was ending its show The world upside down, Stéphan Bureau is not absolutely keen to return to the spotlight either. Especially since his podcast, which keeps him quite busy these days, offers him a flexibility that he would never find on TV.
“If there’s a big lesson for TV in the success of podcasts, it’s that the first thing that matters is always the content, not the container. Unfortunately, on television, we often focus more on form than substance. We spend too much time thinking about decor or lighting. We underestimate the intelligence of viewers. However, the most popular podcast in the world is that of Joe Rogan. The decor couldn’t be uglier: it’s a sheet behind the guest. The important thing is what people say,” argues Stéphan Bureau.
“No cash”
Almost a year ago, he launched the podcast Contact, in reference to the series of major interviews that he has already hosted at Télé-Québec. He confides that he has so far injected around ten thousand dollars of his own pocket into his project, of which he is convinced of the potential, not only in Quebec, but throughout the French-speaking world. As a joke, he doesn’t talk about his ” podcast “, but from his “no cash “.
Because Stéphan Bureau is still far from succeeding in making his investments profitable, even if he has just joined forces with Télé-Québec for the broadcast of Contact. It is indeed difficult to find sponsors in a context where anyone can launch a podcast in a market as restricted as Quebec.
“At the moment, it’s a bit like the Wild West,” he illustrates. Many people are claiming their piece of territory. Afterwards, you also have to know how to keep it. And for that, you need a lot of patience. Will I have enough to still be here in two years? I hope so. »