the first time “Le Monde” wrote it

LThe word game “Loft Story” appears in the pages of the World thirteen years before the reality TV show of the same name. It is then a sitcom, written and performed by Francis Perrin, featuring the misadventures of a couple living in a loft, produced by Antenne 2, the future France 2. The world evokes this series in an article, September 14, 1988, on the war opposing TF1, privatized the previous year, in 1987, to its competitor of the public service. The sitcom is a failure – 7% audience, against 27% for “The wheel of fortune”, broadcast at the same time -, confirming the supremacy of TF1.

When the expression “Loft Story” reappears, it is March 26, 2001, in an article entitled “Reality TV is coming to M6”. The broadcast of the first program of this type is announced for the month of May. ” Until now, writes Sylvie Kerviel, French televisions had prudently contented themselves with observing the phenomenon from a distance. Despite their huge success around the world, “reality TV” shows – “Big Brother”, “Survivor”, etc. -, whose principle consists in observing twenty-four hours a day individuals reclusive in an apartment or exiled on a desert island, had been spared the French public (…) With “Loft Story”, announced for the month of May, M6 is the first “big chain” to dare to open its grid to a very controversial genre. “ The article states that 38,000 people responded to the call for candidates to participate in the show.

Candidates who, according to the criteria of the chain, must be “Good in their head and good in their skin” and which will all pass into the hands of a “Team of graduate psychoanalysts”. “Loft Story” will bring together eleven candidates, six boys and five girls, cloistered for eleven weeks in a loft, observed and listened to day and night by around thirty cameras and microphones.

Gender, the main focus of the program

When The world returns to the subject, on April 2, a little more than three weeks before the launch of the show, it is with an interview with its producer, Alexia Laroche-Joubert. The prism of the interview is particular. It revolves around the decision of the producers of the show to impose an HIV test on applicants. Act Up-Paris has, through a press release, protested against this decision deemed “discriminatory”. This raises another question, which will ensure the success of the show. “Loft Story” is presented as a prime time entertainment program, but it is already clear that sex will be the main focus.

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