Does the Plus belle la vie repeat work on Chérie 25?

Yesterday was the big day: Plus belle la vie was back on Chérie 25 four months after its final on France 3. But in “Rediff” mode. To what result?

Let’s be pragmatic and look cool at the numbers: 121,000 people watched the first episode of better life at 12:50 p.m., and they were down to 41,000 by 4:30 p.m., 8 episodes later. Bad sign for the series? Only time can tell. But let’s say on the broadcast side, the station does a little bit of everything that shouldn’t be done with soap.

The soap is not consumed as a “looped episode” series or as a comedy whose episodes can be swallowed one after the other. Due to its serialized nature, this means watching all episodes. And even with replay available, the more episodes you offer back-to-back, the more complicated it becomes if we miss the boat.
Then the time window. So the soap is the daytime program “in theory” during the day, so we can say that the schedule is perfectly chosen. This is how it was built in history. But a daily program that we follow for 30 minutes, not 5 hours. So it makes sense that by 1pm it’s busy during lunch time, but that’s when most people go to work. Over and beyond, better life was set up for an audience at 8:15 p.m., very different from midday. Finally, and not only in France, but the soap opera is a genre that is not repeated (at least not regularly). You might want to pick up episodes here and there like the American channels did during confinement. But overall the soap is a show of the moment, we don’t see it “x” years later. This isn’t the first time we’ve attempted a rebroadcast better life (for example on France 4) and it was never a success. Admittedly, the other times the series still existed and we preferred to watch the unreleased ones. But even with the nostalgia effect today, when the series is over, this effect quickly disappears when the broadcaster “carbonizes” the series for 8 episodes.

It should be honest. It’s only the first day that Chérie 25 has aired so many episodes. Starting today, a “new” episode will be broadcast daily. Shortly before that, there are repeats from the previous day. So not only is the soap not repeated badly or not at all, but you also risk watching the same episode multiple times a week. Only around 4 p.m., at the end of the day, is the rest offered. A not easy schedule for the series.