He knew everything at Canal. From the groping beginnings of France’s first pay channel, in 1984, to glory as a comedian alongside Philippe Gildas every evening in Nowhere Elseup to various broadcast and fiction projects. Antoine De Caunes, eldest son of Canal+, hosts the anniversary show which brings together, Monday November 4, around sixty “talents” from the channel during an evening of events.
Highly solicited by the media as the fortieth anniversary of Canal+ approaches, Antoine De Caunes responds with good grace, on the day after Halloween and Day of the Dead. If he coughs, he is not dead and neither is the Canal spirit, he swears. “Don’t make me a Canal+ expert,” he warns. I’m sometimes mistaken for the channel’s hard drive, but I don’t have universal knowledge of it. »
20 Minutes nevertheless tried to find with him where the famous Canal spirit nestles, 40 years later, in the Bolloré era.
Do you have the feeling of being the living memory of Canal?
A bit… I was there at the beginning and I stayed there but I also went back and forth. And I’m not a very good viewer, I miss things, I’ve missed entire years. But let’s say that I have an overview of what was practiced there and what is practiced there…
40 years is a lifetime. How would you summarize these 40 years of television creation?
It’s very difficult. I especially have trouble remembering the beginnings because at that time, we didn’t think it was going to last at all so we were in a state of mind of the moment, we didn’t plan for the future. All. If you told everyone who was there in 1984 that they would still be making TV 40 years later, they would have laughed. No one saw themselves making a life on TV…
Especially since in the beginning, Canal+ almost stopped even before its first anniversary…
We had a lot of enemies, there were political issues, economic wars. The media at the time were not very benevolent because we wanted to make TV a little differently. The arrival of ball films stabilized our finances…
Canal+ is sometimes summarized as this triptych: cinema – football – porn. Is this still true today?
That’s it, but it’s more than that. To return to the first question, we can say that what sums up these 40 years is creativity and the search for excellence. When Canal launches into football, it looks for the best directors, the best cameras, to create an experience… And when Canal launches into series, it’s the same. We see things on Canal that we wouldn’t see elsewhere. When I see Fever or HippocratesI would like to be able to say to myself “if it’s not on Canal, someone else will do it”, but that’s not true. Only Canal can do that.
When Canal+ launched into porn or football, there were controversies.
Yes, when we started following all the football championship matches, there were people saying that we were going to empty the stadiums. What bullshit…
Today, the controversy has moved. There are new reasons to love or hate Canal+.
It’s a love hate relationship but love wins by a long shot, Look at the subscribers! I am not following an accounting logic but the real shareholders of this chain are them. And more than their number, what matters is their satisfaction. Those I meet have a very deep attachment to the channel. There were rejections at times, but those who held on, who stayed from the start, have a special attachment. We’re like family, like an old friend.
You are talking about shareholders. The main shareholder of Canal+, Vincent Bolloré, is the subject of debate and his positioning contributes to the distrust of Canal+.
Canal+ is the flagship of a group which has other concerns. When Lagardère senior was at the head of his group, he sold weapons and at the same time the group had important media in France. It is very difficult to answer for its main shareholder, as a media in a capitalist system. I sincerely think that Canal+ does not suffer from an imposed editorial line. I feel like we’re pretty free. Jean-Marie Messier [PDG de Vivendi, propriétaire de Canal+, de 1996 à 2002] was very interventionist, that didn’t bring him luck…
Would you say that despite the controversies surrounding Bolloré, the relationship between Canal+ and the French has normalized?
I don’t know. It’s very difficult to compare eras. The world has changed considerably, TV before the Internet didn’t look at all like TV today. Canal+ has experienced the liberalization of the airwaves, dozens of channels have arrived. Canal+ has become a platform. For a channel like Canal, the mantra is “adapt and survive”. The history of Canal+ is French history, it is a history that follows the life of France in parallel.
What makes Canal’s enduring identity over the decades: the era, the people who make Canal or the people who own Canal?
It’s a mixture of all that. The balance must be achieved without ever losing freedom and relevance in the analysis of the era. Canal’s creations remain incredibly accurate, I find. Watch a series like Blood and silver… There are also all the generations of comedians who have passed and still pass through Canal. The livestock has been renewed without the spirit, the desire to try things, having deserted the chain. Frankly, I say it without any corporate spirit… And this 40th anniversary party is a good example.
Will it be a summary of the Canal spirit?
Rather a new emanation. We haven’t opened the file cabinets. We preferred to invent something that was hybrid, between the old-fashioned music hall and something modern brought by the participants. We took a step aside, it seemed more relevant and interesting to us than a best-of or an evening of self-congratulations.
Celebrating this birthday without you would have been unthinkable. On a personal level, do you still feel like a child of Canal today?
We have always had a very close relationship. At all times, they let me do TV when I wanted to and according to what I wanted. Fiction, everyday life… At Canal, I have a games table with a palette that I don’t see elsewhere. Of course, it’s an underlying story, I’m not tied hand and foot, I had the freedom to wander around, to come back. It’s pretty incredible.
