The ax fell in the Mistral. France Télévisions will stop broadcasting its flagship series in November More beautiful lifeon screen since 2004 on France 3, announced the group, Thursday, May 5, invoking the evolution of « Viewer Expectations » and of « the consumption of programs » from eighteen years.
The director of the antennas of France Télévisions, Stéphane Sitbon-Gomez, Anne Holmes, program director, and Christian Vion, in charge of antenna resources have officially announced at the Belle de Mai studios the end of production of the Marseille soap opera.
“This Thursday, May 5, 2022, the management of France Télévisions announced to the teams of More beautiful lifein Marseille, that this season would be the last, the group said in a statement. More beautiful life will thus conclude its long journey on the air in November 2022. This pioneering and emblematic soap opera has become the longest daily French series in history and a strong brand of France 3″, praised the group about a program « transgenerational, rooted in proximity, authenticity and the realities of French society in all its diversity ».
But « a renewal of the creative offer is necessary »estimates France TV, at a time of the boom in streaming platforms and when three other daily soap operas compete More beautiful life, on TF1 and France 2.
With More beautiful life, France Télévisions has successfully relaunched the popular soap opera genre. Launched in 2004, on the antenna of France 3, the emblematic series of the public channel had reached nearly 7 million viewers in the 2000s but audiences have crumbled in recent years, falling to 2.7 million on average over the 2021-2022 season, according to Médiamétrie.
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Roland, Mirta, Luna, Céline, Blanche, Mélanie and Thomas entered French homes in September 2004. The series quickly became cult and even helped to gild the image of Marseille. One of the keys to the success of the series, created by Hubert Besson, is to reflect society and its evolutions. The soap opera tackles many ssocial issues through the daily life of its characters. PBLV will thus remain as the first fiction to have shown a kiss between two men on French television, recalls France 3 Marseille.
If the end of the series will leave thousands of fans orphans, it will also cause the end of the contract of many collaborators in the audiovisual sector. Technical staff, actors, scriptwriters, More beautiful life has employed some 600 intermittent workers every year. Present on site during the announcement, the teams take the hit. « That’s it, it’s the end clap. We were told the end of filming at the end of September », lamented Thierry Lavaille, Force Ouvrière union representative, present on the set at the Belle de Mai.
France Télévisions has nevertheless undertaken to continue « a new story with Marseille and its region » via « a new creative pact » in the Marseille city, « in the extension of the France 2030 plan », who must « translating into the filming of new original series ».
« We are relieved in a way because France Televisions undertook to compensate to the nearest penny, i.e. 30 million euros per year, the amount of the filming of More beautiful life in Marseille via mini-series « or telefilms », added this technician who has been working on the series for seventeen years.
To celebrate the end of an 18-year adventure in style, the channel assures in a press release not to « to forget neither the public nor those who contributed to making More beautiful life a series that has marked the history of television and is part of our common heritage ». She thus promises that the end of the soap opera « will live up to what he has brought to the French for many years ».
In November, fans of the series will be able to discover the epilogue that France 3 is committed to « to wrap up with dignity with the public and all the talents who have shaped it, behind and in front of the camera. »