And if Kamel Ouali And Armande Altai were making their return to Dammarie-les-Lys next year? Nothing is less sure ! In an interview he gave to France Bleu this Wednesday January 24, 2024, Matthew Vergnethe co-producer of the star Academy via his production company DMLSTV (with which he also produces the annual Enfoirés concert), took stock of the eleventh season of the program, which will end on February 3. And the least we can say is that the audiences were in good shape, both for the Saturday evening bonuses and for the daily ones, and even more so for the digital offer, which was a hit on all points. This year, the hashtags #StarAcademy and #StarAcademyLeLive were among the most used, all shows combined, with a digital consumption record for a TV program.
By relaunching the format after 15 years of absence, TF1, DMLSTV and EndemolShine made the joint decision to completely reinvent the teaching staff, sidelining all the former teachers who had made the tele-hook a success: “We really thought about that, it’s true that I tended to think at the time that it was good to start from a blank page in terms of teachers, to really be on a new season, with only new characters, like in a series, I don’t know if it was the good or the bad idea because we’ll never see the other because that’s the problem in TV, it’s that ‘we never have the opportunity to necessarily test two things’ justified Mathieu Vergne. But it is clear that the flash returns of Kamel Ouali, Matthieu Gonet, Michael Jones, Oscar Sisto, Christophe Pinna and Armande Altaï during this season were popular, and revived the nostalgia of the faithful from the first hour of the program.
“In any case, it’s not impossible”
Enough to push production to bring them back next season? The idea seems to be gaining ground: “I don’t know what we’ll do for the next two years, but It would not seem at all inconceivable to me to take over a former teacher. We also saw it during Christmas week when they all returned to the castle; Armande, Oscar and Kamel returned to the castle, and it was great to see them again. I think it was good because the program was repositioned and now, in fact, naturally it works, the family cohabits and it’s beautiful, over this Christmas week and it could… Finally, I I don’t know at all what we will do next year and if we will change teachers, but in any case it’s not impossible“ assured the producer, who, in passing, subtly slipped that the star Academy would also be back in 2025!
During this interview, Mathieu Vergne also revealed that a full bonus of the twelfth season proposed for the next school year will be dedicated to the 20th anniversary of Grégory Lemarchal’s victory. The young man, who died at the age of 23 from cystic fibrosis two and a half years after his victory, became on December 22, 2004 the first man to win the competition, winning by a wide margin over Lucie Bernardoni, who has since become the coach of the Académiciens alongside Marlène Schaff. So, what new things can we expect for the class of 2024? ? We can’t wait!