It is a return that was not expected and even less on the public service. According to The Parisian, France 2 is indeed preparing to relaunch … Master Chef, the program which made the heyday of TF1 before being stopped for lack of audience.
Three weeks of filming are planned from the end of April until the beginning of May, in a studio in Plaine-Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis). Eight prime times have been ordered, for broadcast scheduled for the next school year.
If the mechanics will remain the same, there is no question for France Télévisions to deliver a copy-paste of the TF 1 version, focused on reality TV.
La Deux promises “surprises” in the development of the tests, the choice of candidates and the composition of a “statutory jury”.
It remains to be seen who the channel will put at the head of this remake. According to the Parisian, several names were mentioned including Faustine Bollaert, Julia Vignali, or even the new star of public service Cyril Féraud, but in the end, the final choice fell on Agathe Lecaron.
After the disappointing scores of the first two shows of the last season, in 2015 TF1 stopped broadcasting the cooking show MasterChef. It was NT1 who then recovered the amateur competition. The first episode on TF1 had gathered only 2.7 million viewers, placing TF1 in third position of the evening, while the second did even worse with 2.6 million. Scores obviously well below the channel’s objectives. But scores which might on the other hand satisfy France 2 in 2022 …