Two million viewers. This is the threshold from which we can say whether Canal has rekindled the flame of the Caesars this Friday evening. The audience must be better than in 2022 – only 1.3 million viewers – the year when Antoine de Caunes complied with the presentation exercise by reforming his duo with José Garcia.
It must at least exceed 1.6 million viewers in 2019 and 2021, already two years of low water. The year 2020, marked by the jokes of Florence Foresti, the reward of Roman Polanski and the departure of the ceremony of Adèle Haenel, had attracted 2.2 million viewers.
At Canal, we assure that we will be satisfied with an audience that does not drop below the 1.3 million viewers of last year. There is, however, a benchmark: the recent 38th edition of the Victoires de la Musique brought together an average of 2.3 million viewers on February 10. It lasted 3:15 a.m., between 9:10 p.m. and 12:25 a.m. With 2 million viewers, the Césars would therefore achieve a great “remontada”.
Remains a constraint that risks stopping the evening. Impossible, for the Académie des César, to compress the time and the number of television awards: the 48th ceremony of its kind will last three long hours and fifteen minutes in order to distribute twenty-four awards.
It’s certainly better than the 3:45 of old. But that risks giving a boring spectacle, the Césars not offering as many twists and turns as the two feature films of more than three hours that are Damien Chazelle’s Babylon and James Cameron’s Avatar 2…
During the top match between PSG and Bayern Munich, in the Champions League, on Tuesday February 14, the channel owned by Vivendi and the Bolloré family showed images, in the stands of the Parc de Princes, of actor Tahar Rahim, president of the ceremony, and Jamel Debbouze, who will be one of the masters of a ceremony prepared down to the smallest detail by Maxime Saada.
The president of the executive board of the Canal group had complained about a crazy and disrespectful 2021 edition of the viewer, during which Corinne Masiero, main actress of the series Captain Marleau, had ended up completely naked on stage, bloodied, sanitary tampons in her ears.
“We’re doing this show in the clear for viewers, people who love movies. The main thing is to entertain”, confided the leader of Canal to us before this 2021 ceremony. The channel produces the evening in-house, with its Flab studio, and takes advantage of the Olympia stage, which belongs to Vivendi.
Éric Lartigau, director of La Famille Bélier (2014), is in charge of the production. Canal, which broadcasts the vast majority of films nominated for the Césars, hopes to attract new subscribers.
This year, Maxime Saada convinced Jamel Debbouze and Jérôme Commandeur to be part of the collective of masters of ceremonies who present the awards, a collective which also includes Alex Lutz, Léa Drucker, Leïla Bekhti, Emmanuelle Devos, Eye Haïdara, Ahmed Sylla and Raphaël Personnaz .
A sort of “Jamel Comedy Club”, which gives pride of place to in-house talents stamped Canal: Léa Drucker for the series Le Bureau des legendes; frequent-air Alex Lutz, whose channel aired the hilarious soap-opera La Vengeance au triple gallop; Jamel, Jerome Commander…
In recent weeks, the Vivendi subsidiary has broadcast, on its channels and on cinema screens, a humorous spot where we see all these actors fighting to present the Césars. Live sketches and humorous film sequences – known as “magnets” in television jargon – will be essential to enliven the ceremony.
One watchword for presenters and recipients: be “joyful”. Happy to be there. Happy to be rewarded. In the event of a collective award, only one person will speak. Speeches should not exceed one minute. A challenge!
The evening has already been tainted by the controversy surrounding the exclusion of Sofiane Bennacer from the César nominations for best male hope. The actor of the film Les Amandiers, indicted, denies the accusations of rape against him.
“Political correctness” will be one of the main pitfalls to avoid in order to restore the image of the Caesars. We remember these good words from the former Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot in her book Le Bal des hypocrites: accusatory, sprinkle their interventions with laborious good words concocted by an exhausted gagman, conchie the minister curled up in his armchair like a boxer knocked out at the corner of the ring then rush to Fouquet’s, whose prices are known for working-class restaurants. »
