Launched in 2006, “Camping Paradis”, with Laurent Ournac, is still a hit this summer on TF1 and crushes the competition. While a new one in Reunion is broadcast this Monday, we decipher the success of the series with its producer and some fans.
For TF1, since the beginning of summer, the sun has been shining more than ever on the side of the Camping Paradis bungalows.
While many of the channel’s historic brands have come to a halt in recent years (Alice Nevers, Profiling, Une famille formidable, Balthazar, Research Section which will return in the form of special TV films), and others are beginning to show serious signs of breathlessness on the audience side (like Clem), the family series worn since 2006 by Laurent Ournac continues to be a hit every Monday on TF1.
Previously broadcast sporadically throughout the year, as is still the case for Joséphine, guardian angel, the episodes of Camping Paradis are now almost exclusively programmed during the summer on the front page.
A rather logical tactic, implemented in 2021, and which pays off since the series has managed for two years to regain color and reach scores that it had not known for almost a decade. In particular on the privileged target of advertisers: the famous woman responsible for purchases under 50 (FRDA-50).
Indeed, on July 3, the unprecedented “Hip-Hop at the campsite”, which welcomed Fabienne Carat (Plus belle la vie) and Ariane Seguillon (Tomorrow belongs to us) as guests, managed the feat of collecting 4.7 million viewers in standby audience, with very good performances on targets (30% of FRDA-50, 46% of 15-24 year olds and 34% of 15-34 year olds gathered in front of their screen).
A success which was confirmed last Monday, with 4.4 million faithful and 29% of women responsible for purchases under 50 who were passionate about the episode against the background of clairvoyance with Laurent Gamelon. So how do you explain that Camping Paradis still appeals so much to the public?
Camping Paradis, a remedy for the ambient gloom
Of course, the summer programming chosen by TF1 is obviously one of the factors that explains the success of Camping Paradis since the start of the summer. Because what could be better than a broadcast in July and August for a fiction that smells like the holidays?
“The programming is quite ideal because we are in the middle of summer, and since Camping Paradis is deeply a family series, we have a crossroads where the public is present in front of their TV”confirms Richard Berkowitz, the producer of the series, before qualifying. “But it is not because the public is available that it necessarily comes to see us”.
However, in a summer offer less and less provided in new series, which gives pride of place to reruns and entertainment programs, Camping Paradis almost acts as an exception and therefore attracts fans of fiction more easily.
“There really isn’t much to eat this summer on TV”says Maryse, 62. “So when I see that there’s a new Camping Paradis show on TF1, I go for it, even if it’s not my favorite series. It’s a program that does you good and allows you to find actors you appreciates, like Fabienne Carat, whom I followed for a long time in Plus belle la vie, which I never missed”.
Indeed, to reach the viewer, the production and TF1 are betting in particular on ultra popular guests, such as Fabienne Carat and Rebecca Hampton this year, or Vincent Lagaf’, Philippe Bas, Corinne Touzet and Linda Hardy in previous seasons. “It has been our trademark since the creation of the series: in each episode we have a guest, who is a popular reference for the general public, and who at the same time fits well with the issue of the episode”explains Richard Berkowitz.
François LEFEBVRE / JLA / TF1 Fabienne Carat, alias Carole, in the episode “Hip-Hop at the campsite”.
And then there is the basic recipe, this mixture of comedy and emotion, which does not move, like the characters of Laurent Ournac, Thierry Heckendorn and Patrick Guérineau, present since the beginning of the adventure, and which makes Camping Paradis, the ultimate family and feel good series.
“The hardest work in writing is to maintain this dramatic side, where we manage to make people laugh and move”entrusts the producer of the series to our microphone. “Little by little we pushed the sliders, with a character like Parizot, who brings emotion, but also and above all comedy. And for emotion, we can count on our problems, which are often secrets of families, all treated without moral judgment. We are in the human, and I think it is this sincerity that continues to please and touch the greatest number “.
“Camping Paradis is made to please people. And when we see the audiences, or the reactions of people on Twitter on broadcast evenings, we say to ourselves that the target has been reached”he continues. “For a few years, with the Covid, inflation, the war in Ukraine, we have had the feeling that when people watch Camping Paradis they relax for 1h30, they think of something else, and it feels good”.
A feeling visibly shared by the faithful of the series. Like Valentine, 32, who admits that the series with Laurent Ournac is his “little bubble of oxygen”: “I’m a little fed up with thrillers, that’s all on television. Camping Paradis, I’ve been watching it since I was a teenager, it’s a series that makes good, which airs the head, and which allows you to forget for a moment the worries of everyday life”.
A formula that is renewed… but not too much
Praised by a family audience and lovers of popular comedies, Camping Paradis is often mocked by others, who criticize it for its lack of modernity, its benevolence, even its sentimentality. Reproaches which are also often leveled at Joséphine, guardian angel, the other unstoppable series of TF1. But which do not reach more than that the producer of the adventures of Tom Delormes.
“I don’t know what modernity is, I never knew. I make series for people, so when it meets the public, that’s the main thing”admits Richard Berkowitz, who nevertheless deplores this very French tendency to criticize. “In France, we always tend to criticize the popular. This was already the case with The Gendarme of Saint-Tropez And The 7th Companyit will be the same in a few years for The Tuches And Camping the film. That’s a shame. I’m not sure that in the United States they criticized The Cruise has fun, Charlie’s Angels Or saved by the bell. But it’s not more serious than that. I move forward, I look ahead”.
Although it is based on an unchanged basic concept (“Two storylines with guests who arrive with problems and our recurring characters who will help them get through this”), Camping Paradis has obviously evolved since the broadcast of its first episode in November 2006.
Gwael Desbont / JLA / TF1
Tom, Xavier and Parizot fly to Reunion in the July 17 episode.
“We always try to keep the soul of Camping, with comedy, social subjects and an intergenerational side, which appeals to children as much as to young adults and grandparents, but we have added little things through the seasons”explains the producer of the series. “Like the fact that Tom Delormes, played by Laurent Ournac, is now in a relationship with Stéphanie (Juliet Oak), and have a baby girl. We flip a little bit”.
Evolutions that appeal to diehard fans of the series: “We knew Tom with Ariane, then Aurélie, and now Stéphanie, and it’s great to see him in the role of dad. I’m very attached to the characters and actors in this series, and I think these changes are important This is also what keeps us coming back episode after episode, and not just the camping atmosphere and the good humor that emanates from it.”enthuses Aymeric, 28, who therefore sees the contribution of soap opera as a reward for loyal viewers.
In the same vein, the scriptwriters have been offering special episodes for several years, which take the heroes – and the public – out of the campsite. After “Les Bleus are skiing”, proposed in December 2021 and which saw the camping team leave for Morzine in a hotel belonging to Xavier’s father, TF1 is broadcasting this Monday July 17 “Les Bleus à la Réunion”, an unpublished Season 14 of Camping Paradis in which Tom, Xavier and Audrey (Candiie) fly to Reunion Island, where the wedding of the son of Christian Parizot (Patrick Paroux) is about to be celebrated.
“We really wanted to take our regulars out of the campsite, because that allows us to make episodes more focused on them. It’s a pleasure for the actors, but also for the fans of the series. And then it offers a totally different. We had done Corsica a few years ago, we went skiing, to Reunion this year, and we are going to Morocco next year”reveals Richard Berkowitz. “Each year we will try to do an event episode outside the campsite. It’s a little gift for everyone”.
Pascal Légitimus, Joy Esther, and “a very big guest” expected in the next episodes
Building on its success, Camping Paradis still has a bright future ahead of it on TF1. While the series should go into reruns mode from July 31, after a last unreleased next Monday surfing on boy band nostalgia with Frank Delay and Anthony Dupray as guests, two other episodes, shot in the spring, are already in the box. . For likely release next year.
“The Magic of Paradise” will thus see Pascal Légitimus lend his features to a magician who arrives at the campsite to participate in a competition and finds himself, to his great surprise, confronted with his half-sister, also a candidate. “Pascal Légitimus as a magician who misses all his tricks, it’s super funny”rejoices Richard Berkowitz. “We’re lucky to have someone like him, who comes and shoots with us with pleasure and plays it all in the first degree”.
Olivier MARTINO / JLA / TF1
Boy band atmosphere at Camping Paradis with Frank Delay and Anthony Dupray.
Then comes another unreleased, “Two Chefs in Paradise”, with Joy Esther (Our dear neighbors), Audrey Looten (Tomorrow belongs to us) and Yann Sundberg (Here it all begins). While two other episodes will be shot this fall, around the themes of a regatta and a bachelor party. And with “a very big guest” in the credits of the first, even if the producer of Camping Paradis refuses for the moment to reveal his name.
The episode in Morocco, whose plot is kept secret for the moment, will be shot next January. And when we ask Richard Berkowitz if he is ready to continue for another seventeen years, his answer is not long in coming: “Yes, of course. We have a great production team, we are extremely lucky with our actors, who are professional, nice, and not big-headed. It’s a pleasure to work with them. It’s is a real family. So if we can keep it for a few more years, we will not deprive ourselves of it”.