“Secret Story” is back but it won’t be the same program as before

This Wednesday took place the press conference which the DH was able to attend. The opportunity for the channel and production to give more details on this reality show which was the heyday of TF1 during the 2000s.

”Game, game and more game”

The legendary program will not use the same codes as in the past. According to Julien Degroote, the director of development and creation of the TF1 channel, the emphasis will now be placed on strategy and gaming, relegating clashes and the reality TV aspect to the background: “Our objective is to make Secret Story, family entertainment with the motto: games, games and more games.”

Even the secrets are meant to be more fun, abandoning the tragic stories that marked previous seasons. Finally, other secrets will be used by production.

As for the candidates, no information will leak. “Let’s say things clearly, the desire is to offer a “Safe” family program, not candidates who want to become Instagrammers and who only want one thing, to show off their tattoos and their redone bodies,” explains Rémi Faure, the boss TF1 programs. If we do not yet have any clues on these, we are assured that there could be some Belgianness in the candidates.

A new disappointment for the Belgians

From a practical point of view, following this new season will require organization. The launch and presentation of the candidates planned with great fanfare on April 23 will take place after Koh-Lanta, that is to say at 11:30 p.m. For a program that aims to be family-friendly, it is a failure.

After this “one shot”, the show will have a daily broadcast, from Monday to Friday on TF1, with an elimination during the last of the week, on Friday, followed by an after party. A live performance will also be offered. As you will have understood, there will be no bonus as in the past. For the duration of this season, it will be like the Star Academy launch season, shorter, even if we are confirmed that it will spill over a little into the start of the Euro scheduled for June 14, 2024. .

For Belgian viewers, a new disappointment awaits them: the impossibility of following the candidates via the TF1 + platform for the after-party after the elimination of the candidate and the lives (which will, for their part, be offered four hours a day in average). Despite requests throughout Star Academy, production does not seem to want to change its mind in this regard.

The largest French sink

Here again, the production hits hard. No more traveling between the house and the set when a candidate is eliminated. This year, she decided to completely build the house in a warehouse in Poissy with Christophe Beaugrand’s platform attached to it. In total, more than 1,000 m2 for the house and garden, making it the largest the show has ever seen. It will be decorated with a 40 m2 swimming pool in the shape of a sink… which becomes the largest sink in France. A 200m² games room appears, all monitored by an impressive system of 73 cameras.

Christophe Beaugrand, who announced it a few weeks ago, will return to service after presenting the ninth, tenth and eleventh seasons. “I loved presenting Secret Story. It’s really a show that interests me and that I like,” the presenter explains. Will he be accompanied by columnists, former emblematic candidates? On the production side, we are told not to close the door.

Beyond all these changes, purists will be delighted to find the emblematic voice of the house of secrets. It remains to be seen whether the one who asserts, without modesty, “The voice is a genius”, will have been right in offering an entertainment which takes the basis of the famous game of the 2000s, because on paper, this new version risks being a little too smooth compared to what viewers expect today…