Our series "Loft Story turns 20" in 3 episodes
How TF1 and M 6 betrayed their secret pact
Behind the scenes of a top secret preparation
Why did the show stop after only two seasons?
It is July 4, 2002. Karine and Thomas win the second edition of “Loft Story” on M 6. The last one, in fact.
Because if nearly six million French people are at the rendezvous of the final, the show that has turned the audiovisual landscape upside down like no other will never return to the screens.
However, on the Six side, all the signals are green.
In any case in appearance.
Even if the audiences have fallen slightly, they remain appreciably above the performance of the channel.
But this "Loft 2" does not have the same flavor as the first.
“The casting was less authentic, admits Angela Lorente, the co-producer of the first, who did not work on this second edition.
The candidates already knew what awaited them, inside and outside the house.
"
“Of course, it wasn't the same thing anymore.
Including for me.
But we still had very good times, ”tempers its host, Benjamin Castaldi.
Among them, the coming out of Thomas live, “which was not common at the time”.
But the participants in search of notoriety and the lack of novelty are not the main causes of this stop.
It is above all the eternal war of the chains which was right of “Loft Story”.
TF 1 takes out the checkbook
Back in April 2001. Faced with the success of the first reality show launched by its competitor M 6, TF 1 wasted no time.
The first "Koh-Lanta" is shot and edited when Christophe, Julie, Kenza and their comrades invite themselves to millions of French people.
And Europe's premier channel doesn't stop there.
While audiences explode on the Six, the front page sets up a plan of attack never seen before.
From June 2001, while Loana and Christophe had not yet been crowned winners, Patrick Le Lay and Etienne Mougeotte dealt the fatal blow to their opponent.
“This first defeat had strengthened them.
So, they signed an extremely juicy contract with Endemol, ”says Benjamin Castaldi.
Because the checkbook is not a brake to bring down your rival.
To ensure the exclusivity of at least one new “reality television” program each year for five years, TF 1 then spends between 2 and 2.5 billion francs, or the equivalent of more than 300 million dollars. 'euros.
Unheard of for the time.
Karine, Thomas, Angela and David (from left to right), the finalists of the second and final season of “Loft Story”.
LP / Frédéric Dugit and delphine Goldsztejn
And who better to do these shows than the big guys from “Loft Story”? Angela Lorente is debauched at the end of the first “Loft” to create the first reality TV department of TF 1. “They needed immediate know-how,” she recalls. Even though, when I met them, I realized that they were passionate about
The Loft
and that they knew everything about the show. Patrick Le Lay and Etienne Mougeotte loved it! "
At M 6, we grind our teeth a little.
But we continue to look good.
The small chain that goes up cannot compete with such a contract.
"And Endemol is not the only producer of reality TV", plague one at the time in the corridors of the chain.
Except that the second edition of “Loft Story” is signed and already in the pipeline.
We must therefore put conflicts aside.
And recreate a story without the heroes of the first season, including behind the scenes.
The daily life of a channel finally, when producers find themselves working for several broadcasters.
Code name: "Star Maker"
“We still felt that the second season had to be as bad as possible…”, today decrypts Castaldi. Because while part of the Endemol teams are working on this sequel, the rest is focused on another program for TF 1. An entertainment which “consists in bringing out a successful singer within a group staying in a castle. equipped with a recording studio ”, explains the One at the time. Code name: "Star Maker, the star maker". "A poison" and "an anti-Loft", tells Etienne Mougeotte in his book "Powers" (Ed. Calmann-Lévy, 342 pages, 18.90 euros), published in February.
Become “Star Academy”, the program arrives on the air in October 2001. A soft start first then the cardboard which one knows until the victory of Jenifer.
The second edition of the “Loft” landed on M 6 in the spring of 2002. “But during the final, I knew we would not be leaving,” says Benjamin Castaldi.
In 2001, Nikos Aliagas, who had refused "Loft Story", agreed to present the competitor of TF 1, "Star Academy".
LP / Guy Gios
The coup de grace came on April 26, 2003, two years to the day after the launch of “Loft Story” on French screens.
That evening, on TF1, Arthur and Flavie Flament kick off “Nice People”.
Twelve candidates each representing a European country locked themselves in a villa in Nice for ten weeks, filmed 24 hours a day. “It was clearly to kill
Loft Story
, we remember within M 6. They took up the concept , added a little artifice with the European aspect and it was over.
"
After a good start, the audiences of "Nice People" are reduced and are then insufficient for TF 1. The Italian Serena becomes the sole winner, on July 5, like Loana twenty-four months earlier.
But the front page marks the end of the competitor's program.
Read alsoJessica, Jazz, Julien ... twenty years after Loana, here are the new stars of reality TV
M 6 still wants his revenge.
And this one is called "the Colocataire", from April 2004. The hearings of the prime time of Wednesday as of the daily newspaper are very far from the "Loft".
The final is even relegated to a late Saturday afternoon.
Barely more than a million viewers follow Sébastien Charbonneaux's victory.
“No one has managed to redo
the Loft
,” says Angela Lorente.
There can no longer be the same novelty effect.
"TF 1 still managed to find a success of imprisonment reality TV with" Secret Story ", animated from 2007 to 2014 by the same Benjamin Castaldi then until 2017 by Christophe Beaugrand.
The mechanics this time included a game based on secrets to discover.
Audience success, even if less important than “Loft Story” at the time… which M 6 almost got back.
For ten years, the secrecy of the candidates of “Secret Story”, launched in 2007, fascinated the French.
LP / Matthieu de Martignac
In 2010, during a renegotiation of the contract with Endemol, Nonce Paolini, then CEO of TF 1, was preparing to sign two more years. But Axel Duroux, then director of programs, suddenly chokes: "Secret Story", which is all the rage among young people, is not part of the contract. And for good reason. Endemol intends to relaunch the conflict between the enemy brothers by going to solicit Nicolas de Tavernost, the big boss of the Six. For two months, the stakes go up. TF 1 ends up securing the producer's contract and his reality TV show. “Was M 6 really interested? We will never know, ”smiles a player in the negotiations of the time today.
But if "Secret Story" was the longest confinement reality show on French television, for Angela Lorente, it did not have the same flavor as "Loft Story". “Quite simply because real reality TV, the one we launched, is impossible to remake today. Candidates know why they are coming. It is no longer natural, she believes. Today, sincerity can be found on social networks. Instagram is
today's
Loft
! "
