“The Tour de France is stronger than anything.
The same goes for the Olympic Games, with its exploits and unusual stories!
», Enthuses Laurent Luyat, star journalist of France Televisions.
Forget the uncertainties about the holding of the planetary event and the questions about the public's interest in a closed-door competition.
"The magic operates, people need to share emotions, to vibrate together", continues the presenter of the "JO Club".
Halfway through, 39 million French people watched the Tokyo Olympics for at least one minute on one of the public service channels.
Compared to the same period, it is 10% more than for the Rio 2016 Games. “We are very satisfied with these scores, comments from Japan Laurent-Eric Le Lay, head of the sports department.
It confirms our choice to have deployed a device height, without compromising on quality.
Despite the pandemic, these games are not cheap.
"
Read Tokyo Olympic aussiJeux: the full schedule of events to be printed
Gold medal of the audience?
Afternoons on France 2, from 2 p.m. to 5.30 p.m.
In this segment, France 2 is the leader for all audiences with 2.2 million sports enthusiasts on average, or 23.9% of audience share (PDA).
This is 100,000 more than for the previous Games.
If “Les 12 coups de midi” remains at a very high level on TF 1, La Deux also wins points for late mornings: 1.9 million viewers on average, or 27% of PDAs.
At the end of the day, Laurent Luyat's “JO Club” gathered as many, for 20.3% of audience share.
On the other hand, very few of them wake up at night to follow the first meetings of the day, such as swimming: less than 150,000 before 6 am.
Blame it on the poor performance of the French in this discipline?
Romain Cannone, gold medal of the hearings
“The enthusiasm of viewers for the Olympics goes hand in hand with French medals,” underlines Laurent Luyat.
The pace is slowing down, but this year, we had it very early.
Laurent-Eric Le Lay will not say the opposite.
Moreover, this is the editorial line that he has set for his teams: to follow the big finals such as the 100m and all the disciplines where French athletes have a chance to stand on the podium.
“Teddy Riner didn't get the color he hoped for, but there were a lot of emotions to see him fight,” he adds.
Zooming in on the curves of the first six days, Romain Cannone's sword victory ensures him the gold medal of audiences, all categories combined with a peak of 4.8 million viewers on Sunday, or as much as that of the opening ceremony.
On this ground, the money goes to the judokate Clarisse Agbégnénou for her heroic performance on Tuesday: a peak at 3.2 million fans and 46% of PDA. Next week should also be buoyant. “We expect a lot from athletics competitions, slips Laurent Luyat. With in particular a Kevin Mayer, who is aiming for gold in the decathlon. He prepared like crazy, he's one of our French stars! "
