It was one of the most anticipated series of the fall. “In the Shadow”, created by the director of the film often cited as a reference “L’Exercice de l’Etat”, Pierre Schoeller, and adapted from the eponymous book co-written by politicians Édouard Philippe and Gilles Boyer, was broadcast on France 2 over 3 weeks, with two episodes broadcast every Wednesday evening from October 30. Carried by Melvil Poupaud, Swann Arlaud and Karin Viard, the fiction ended this Wednesday, November 13 to general indifference, with only 1.15 million viewers (7.0% audience share and 2.3% of FRDA-50) for the 6th and final episode broadcast from 9:55 p.m. to 10:46 p.m. The finale was the least watched episode of the 6. France 2 finished 4th of the evening, far behind M6, TF1 and France 3.
Below 10% audience share
The plot of the series focused on César Casalonga (Swann Arlaud), a talented political strategist, advisor to Paul Francoeur (Melvil Poupaud), presidential candidate after winning his party's primary. But a shadow hung over Francoeur's candidacy: a rumor of fraud in the primaries, which threatened to compromise his ambitions. The political thriller, available on the france.tv platform since October 23, was on average held in suspense 1,56 million viewers per episode over the 6 weeks of broadcast. This corresponds to an average of 8,5% in audience share. For the target of women responsible for purchasing aged under 50 (FRDA-50), the average is set at 2,2%.
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In detail, the most followed episode was the launch of the series, Wednesday October 30 at 9:10 p.m. 2.33 million curious people responded, or 11.7% of the public and 3.3% of the FRDA-50. As said above, the final episode is the one which attracted the fewest viewers. Between October 30 and November 13, political fiction only lost followers. She thus lost more than half of her viewers between the first episode and the last.
