“One year to climb Everest”, the successful documentary from Inoxtag soon on TF1… risky bet or guaranteed audience peak?

After being a hit in cinemas and on YouTube, the YouTuber’s film about his ascent of Everest will be broadcast on October 8, in the second part of the evening. A challenge for TF1, which will try to bring together a young audience in front of the TV.

PMore than three hundred thousand spectators in cinemas, 28 million views on YouTube, and soon a new audience record for TF1? This is, in any case, what the first channel is hoping for, having announced that it would broadcast the documentary Kaizen: one year to climb Everest from September 28 on its streaming platform TF1+ and on October 8 on air. Inès Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, retraces her physical preparation and her experience as a mountaineer to the roof of the world. A real phenomenon among young people, the documentary has therefore broken several audience records since its release on Friday.

It is in this more than favorable context that the TF1 channel has chosen to partner with the videographer by offering his film an on-air showcase. This could well be seen as a desire to attract younger viewers to their television sets, whose usage studies show that they are turning away from traditional TV in favor of streaming platforms. The fact remains that the broadcasting methods are questionable: nearly a month after the documentary was released in theaters and on YouTube – where it is currently available for free – and in the second part of the evening after an episode of Koh-Lanta. Will the audience be there at 11:30 p.m. for a film that is over two and a half hours long?

If, year after year, young videographers born and raised on YouTube acquire a certain form of respectability, the channels still seem reluctant to give them a real place on their channels. One of the rare experiences of this kind, the broadcast by TFX of a documentary by the YouTuber Seb la frite, entitled Seb in Papua, had ended in failure in terms of audience. Last fall, the “face cachée” interviews of the YouTuber Hugo Décrypte, broadcast at different times on France 2 channels, had also failed to find their audience. In the case of Inoxtag, this late broadcast has the air of a gamble without any real risk-taking. Is the channel aiming more for a PR stunt, by associating the name of its aging brand with that of a young designer who seems to be successful at everything?