A few years ago, shortening the traditional Sunday family meal to slouch on the couch, wait for the start and fall asleep on round 14 was not popular. And not well seen. The dominance of Schumacher and then Red Bull could be barbaric. Before being sublimated by Canal + and starified by Netflix, Formula 1 made the highlights of Sunday afternoons of TF1.
To discover
- Survey - What are your 10 favorite series?
- Survey - Who is your favorite columnist in "TPMP"?
In its logic of being the channel of major sporting events, Patrick Le Lay and Étienne Mougeotte recovered the rights of this discipline in 1992. They install Jean-Louis Moncet and Pierre Van Vliet to commentary. Alain Prost and Jacques Laffitte join them.
Retransmission
TF1 comes out the big means: a broadcast of more than 30 minutes before the Grand Prix, a retransmission of all the GPs (even those that take place at 6 am), the podium and relays in the various television news. But TF1, a commercial channel, has a weak point: the pages of advertisements. Rights are expensive, sport is popular, advertising screens follow one another. Overtaking and accidents are missed. On 1 May 1994, the F1 barnum moved to Italy at Imola. On the sixth lap, while Ayrton Senna resisted Michel Schumacher, Jean-Louis Moncet returned to the air for a page of advertisements. A few minutes later, the return to Imola is violent: we see the Williams of the Brazilian totally destroyed. "We go back to the end of the horror, it is Senna who is stuck in this Williams Renault that hit violently in Tamburello," explains Jean-Louis Moncet to French viewers who have not seen live the fatal accident of the triple world champion.
" READ ALSO Formula 1: Prost-Senna, a duel foot to the floor for eternity
For two decades, broadcasting on TF1 was without a hitch. The audiences are excellent (between three and four million viewers). In 2002, during the Austrian GP, the star commentator Pierre Van Vliet criticised Ferrari's strategy: to ensure victory in the championship, Rubens Barrichello was forced on the orders of Jean Todt to leave 1st place to Schumacher. "The GP of shame," he says before concluding: "They have flouted sport." Christophe Malbranque replaced him in 2003. Technological innovations ensure a renewal of editorial processing. But the end of the Schumacher era and the beginning of Red Bull's overwhelming dominance, with less iconic drivers, weakened the power of Europe's leading chain. The rebroadcast episodes of Walker Texas Rangers, which has the antenna in shared custody of TF1 with F1, make more audience (and especially cost less). In 2013, Vettel, Alonso, Rosberg and the others left the free to find refuge on Canal +.
10 years on Canal+
The encrypted channel awakens the viewer from the torpor. The cast is brilliant without being flashy: the former world champion with free and pictorial speech, Jacques Villeneuve, is a duet of thunder with Julien Fébreau. The latter invents a "gimmick" at the end of each warm-up lap: "Turn up the volume and go to the first corner." The Grands Prix are treated in the Canal+ way: an ambitious device, no advertising, a really useful second screen (on-board camera), dedicated programs and a whole panel of consultants who dare everything (Frank Montagny breaking all the prohibitions). The hearings shudder.
Read alsoIn Monaco, a princely circuit for an exceptional Grand Prix on television
Where TF1 was on a French diet, Canal+ benefited from the good behaviour of French drivers: podium and victory for Pierre Gasly, success for Esteban Ocon. The Netflix series "Drive to survive" packs F1 with glamour. The hearings shudder. And when the championship is played in the last round in 2021 between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, the viewer is not slumped on his couch: he is well seated ready to vibrate. The hearings are soaring.
We recognize the popularity of a discipline to be seen even when nothing happens: the audience curve of Canal + did not decline for nearly four hours during a GP of Spa-Francorchamps flooded and hidden. As Christophe Dechavanne said: "With F1, it's even better in the afternoon".
