It was the show “exceptional” that TF1 wanted to launch at the end of 2024: Gladiators. The first channel deployed the means to communicate around this program presented by Jean-Pierre Foucault, Denis Brogniart and Hélène Mannarino who took over the animation of the Grand Quiz. Except that the game was demolished by Internet users and faced with catastrophic audiences, management preferred to take this radical decision.
With Gladiators, TF1 is destroyed by Internet users
Maybe you’ve seen this show called Gladiators in which the concept is very clearly inspired by Ninja Warriorsgame also broadcast on TF1. Here, ordinary people challenge themselves to “gladiators” through events in which they must demonstrate their strength, speed, balance and agility and above all, be in top physical shape.
And Ninja Warriors had gathered 5 million spectators, the new TF1 game only attracted 2 million onlookers. To say, the program was even beaten by France 2 with its Christmas episode of Murders in Paradise. The public service channel came out on top in the audiences on December 27 with 4.2 million viewers compared to 1.9 million curious viewers for these modern Roman games.
Very clearly, Gladiators did not have an excellent start with its 11.2% audience share. A score which placed the channel at the same level as France 3 which offered a regional choir competition. For TF1, it’s a cold shower.
Catastrophic audiences, after two episodes of Gladiators, TF1 makes this decision
If the channel, which already suffered a failure with the first issue, hoped to make up for it the following week, it was wrong. And for good reason: TF1 did worse by losing 1 million viewers. According to figures from our colleagues at Parisian, the show only brought together 950,000 curious people, which represents 5.9% of the public. We are not hiding our faces: the hearings are simply catastrophic.
With this television accident and public criticism calling the show “corny“, “zero“or again”rotten“, it didn’t take long for TF1 to make a radical decision: deprogram the game after only two episodes. The channel should certainly have surfed on the nostalgia of the public who responded to the great return of bigdilthe cult game hosted by Lagaf’ which was offered on RMC Story which was a hit.
Still, if you had liked Gladiators, you can continue to follow the adventure since the channel will offer the latest issues on Friday in the second half of the evening. This Friday, the game will be replaced by the Jeff Panacloc show Then the following week by the show Arthur’s Tourists.
