After some 4,500 episodes, Plus Belle la Vie, the daily soap opera broadcast for 17 years on France 3, should end soon, reports Le Figaro this Thursday, February 17.
In question ? Audiences down, according to the daily. The series of the public service channel, produced by Newen, would even currently know its last episodes, since “its cameras will turn off at the end of this season”, affirm our colleagues.
Enough to upset the daily life of millions of viewers accustomed to following every evening of the week at dinner time the daily life of the Mistral district in Marseille, with its great happiness and its heavy secrets, its dramas and its joys…
A model that has been emulated
The soap opera launched in 2004, and against all odds quickly installed in the PAF, has since brought to light many actors such as Laurent Kerusoré, Sylvie Flepp, Cécilia Hornus, Serge Dupire, Rebecca Hampton, or even Laëtitia Milot.
Audiences for the series have begun to erode in recent years, dropping in 2018 from 4 million followers on average to below 3 million viewers. Today, Plus Belle La Vie is below 2.5 million viewers and 10% audience. Obviously not enough to continue to produce one of the most expensive programs of the PAF, with nearly 30 million euros allocated per year.
The success of Plus Belle la Vie has in recent years inspired new fiction in the same vein, also broadcast in access such as Tomorrow belongs to us, which arrived in 2017 on TF1, and Un si grand soleil, landed in 2018 on France 2. Soap operas who have certainly contributed to the erosion of PBLV’s audiences.