Véronique Cloutier after the failure of Your beautiful program in 2017: OK, we get it, people prefer clear concepts that can be explained well, it’s good, we learned from our mistakes.
Veronique Cloutier at Zenith thursday night: good evening everyone, here’s a bunch of confusing rules that even the artists still don’t assimilate, the x’s, the y’s, the z’s and the boomers vote in the studio for each of the four numbers, we remove the worst note, there is a reminder for the artist to seduce the generation that has been the most refractory to him, we will add five points at the end for the public’s choice and it is a tournament, with different players, which will be spread out over several weeks!
Contrary to The voice or at Who can sing?foreign concepts that immigrate with a bible of regulations tested all over the world, Zenith start from zero, nothing at all. The game mechanics, the setting (which is impressive, wow!) and the ranking system, everything was made here. It’s a tad more complex than buying a well-established international format, let’s face it.
This is why the first broadcast of Zenith at Radio-Canada has had its ups and downs. Let’s start with the best: the host, the best to warm up a supercharged studio and skilfully manage so many unforeseen events.
Nothing destabilizes Véro, the queen of varieties. She bounces off everything, she shines in this glittery universe (her look was spot on) and she loves music, it looks and feels.
Well yes, Véronique Cloutier was shouting into her microphone and it was getting irritating. But she was having a feverish first, there were more than 100 people screaming behind her, she knows it and will adjust in the coming weeks, that’s obvious.
Also, excluding Sunday evening canons and dailies (STAT and Indefensible), Zenith is one of the few shows to cross the milestone of one million live viewers. Its ratings were rated at 1,009,000 followers on Thursday, almost double the soap opera. Hotel (537,000) at VAT. We will now have to see how Zenith will react on Thursday with the start of the new season of Love is in the meadowone of Noovo’s most popular titles.
Zenith demonstrates that good old-fashioned live television retains its power of attraction in this period of fragmentation on digital platforms. It’s reassuring. And it proves that it pays to create the event as in Zenithat Live from the universeto Upside-down worldat The week of the 4 Julies or at Everybody talks about it.
Now the least successful of Zenith : the notes. All these votes which oscillate between 21 and 23 out of 25, it kills the suspense of the battle of generations. It’s like a film critic giving three stars to a film. We have no idea if it’s really good or if it’s downright bad.
Of course, the production of Zenith cannot influence or direct how people in the studio evaluate performances. Surely there is a way to trick the public into being less nice.
The four main acts, led by Jean-François Breau, Lunou Zucchini, Johanne Blouin and Jason Roy Léveillée, were well executed and surprising.
The modified dress on In another worldhip hopBetween two sealsthe suspension on Levitating of Dua Lipa or the powerful re-reading of Killing Me Softly With His Song, Zenith rakes wide and seduces the grandson like his grandmother.
Personally, it’s the most annoying segment of Zenith which I preferred: that of the karaoke without net. There’s an exciting side to watching artists put themselves in genuine danger by attacking impossible songs like Crazy in Love by Beyoncé (big challenge, Jason Roy Léveillé!).
It gives less smooth, more exhilarating TV, which hooks us to the La-Z-Boy: will Jean-François Breau finally find the right tone for So exceptional by Andrée Watters? Answer: No, and that’s okay. Something happened on our screens.
The four captains (Normand Brathwaite, Félix-Antoine Tremblay, Élyse Marquis and Claudia Bouvette) could have been exploited more. They could, for example, tilt the vote one way or the other and spice up the contest.
For the moment, we don’t give a damn about who wins or loses at Zenith, and that’s a slight problem. It lacks the rivalry aspect that electrified Furywhere friendly contests systematically turned into gender wars.
Joahnne Blouin, the Christmas owl of Masked singerswon the first round, a well-deserved victory.
On the other hand, the interpreter should be warned of Sleep Caroline that it is precisely not necessary to fall asleep during the performances of his comrades.
Yawning in front of the cameras is less subtle than forbidden whispers deep in Asia. And it resonates elsewhere than in the streets of Rome.