TF1’s 1 p.m. news, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, was launched by Yves Mourousi in January 1975.
Michel Denisot, 29 years old at the time, was at his side on the air.
He tells us about this famous first day, of which no recording remains.
Follow the full coverage
The 1 p.m.
Half a century of information. On January 6, 1975, TF1 appeared in the French audiovisual landscape. And, with the creation of the channel, two new unmissable events were born: 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. 50 years ago, it was Yves Mourousi at the helm of 1 p.m. At the time, he was assisted by a young journalist aged 29, whose name is well known today: Michel Denisot.
The latter agreed to a visit to TF1 to tell the story of this famous first day, of which no recording remains. Only the reports from this news story have survived in the archives. “I was making the news, which (n’)not interested (Yves). It varied greatly: there were days when it could be two minutes, five, ten fifteen. From time to time, when he wasn’t there, I did the newspaper.”he recalls in the report visible at the top of this article.
Yves Mourousi was convinced that we would be here tomorrow, and for ten years.
Michel Denisot
-His first news flash concerned an Aristide Maillol sculpture stolen from a collector and found on a sidewalk in the Paris region by a worker. “It was a fairly standard newspaper before. Yves, from the first day, turned everything upside down by having a puppet called Papotin say hello, so it was incredible,” he remembers, smiling.
After their first 1 p.m., the two men return to the editorial office from the studio. They are then strongly questioned by the editorial director. “He told us: ‘it’s over, you’ve made one newspaper but you won’t make two after what you’ve just done, which is terrible’.” “Yves was convinced that tomorrow we would be here, and for ten years. I said to myself: ‘he’s crazy!’”explains Michel Denisot. And he was right: Yves Mourousi remained at the head of 13H until 1981, then until 1988 in a duo with Marie-Laure Augry.
-
Read also
“TF1, 50 years together”: Gilles Bouleau and Isabelle Ithurburu immerse us in the memories of the French
Freddy Mercury, Iggy Pop, many political figures… Michel Denisot remembers all the stars who also made the 1 p.m. In 1988, it was the beginning of a new era, which would last until 2020, that of Jean-Pierre Pernaut, who died in 2022. When he began, “JPP” was the replacement for Michel Denisot. “For two and a half years, he never replaced me because I didn’t want to give up, I didn’t take vacations. And afterward, he had the entire magnificent journey that we know,” confides Michel Denisot.
