Samuel Etienne, star of all screens -
Screenshot / Twitch
If you know which button on your remote control to press to connect to France 3, you probably know Samuel Etienne in his role as host of
Questions for a champion
.
But for more than a month, the host has also been a hit on Twitch, where he hosts (almost) every day a morning press review, live, in front of more than 10,000 people.
“I didn't expect that success at all.
At one point, I wondered: why are there so many?
», He tells
20 Minutes
.
Stream in top 5 world, record of viewers, ban of haters, so many terms which were not part of the vocabulary of Samuel Etienne a few months ago.
But now, since he discovered Twitch, the host of
Questions for a Champion
is now followed by tens of thousands of Internet users every morning.
On December 21, he launched
La matinée est tienne
, a press review devoted to today's news.
Since then, it has convinced nearly 230,000 subscribers.
A real star among the over 65s thanks to the game of France 3, Samuel Etienne is also gradually becoming the idol of the under 30s.
Meet the one who is not afraid of audience scores, on TV or elsewhere.
As soon as you have time in front of you, you start a stream.
That's it, you can't live without it?
Yes, I hadn't measured the addictive side of exercise at all.
It's a good addiction, it's a lot of fun.
I now understand better the behavior of streamers who stream every day and for long hours.
What seemed a little mysterious to me is no longer so at all.
Suddenly, what you're producing is no longer just something that goes one way but immediately bounces back, and that's very jubilant.
For two days, I stopped since I was recording
Questions for a Champion
and I missed it a lot.
Before you got started on Twitch, how did you relate to media literacy?
I realized that by talking about newspapers to an audience that did not read them or very little, I explained to them what an editorial was, why a newspaper is a more reliable source of information than something lying around on Facebook.
I explain to them the hierarchy of information, the importance of sources, the fact that a journal is proofread and corrected, validated and signed.
All this is obvious to journalists but they do not necessarily know it.
This is a very important but totally unexpected aspect, that I had not anticipated, of my press review.
In fact, I do a lot of media literacy and I am very happy.
According to the
La Croix
barometer
, only a third of French people trust journalists ...
I do not understand that.
When
La Croix's
annual survey
came out, I created a poll on Twitch and got the same result.
Two-thirds of my panel told me that they didn't trust journalists.
I fell from my chair, I bugged a bit.
I don't understand, they listen to me and at the same time they say that they don't trust journalists.
After that, I received a lot of DM messages on Twitter and it was exciting.
Many people had seen that I had been disturbed by this episode and they explained to me why there was this distrust.
For example, these young people told me that newspapers belong to very rich economic groups and often to billionaires.
“If they belong to these people, you are their employee and you are the voice of your master.
And there, I understand that they have not integrated the idea that the journalist is not an employee like the others, who does not take his orders when arriving in the morning at the office.
That they ignore.
I tell myself that there is a gigantic misunderstanding and that there is an exchange to be had.
Is your stream proof that the prejudices about young people who are not interested in the press are wrong?
This is the observation that I am making.
At first, I didn't expect this success at all.
At one point, I wondered: why are there so many?
Why do they ask me so many questions about current events and how newspapers are made?
In fact, these young people are very interested in current affairs, but the products and the form of the meetings that they are offered do not interest them.
We are with a generation of screens, used to interactivity, to exchange.
They don't just consume, they comment, they criticize, they greet, they are actors in their consumption.
We offer them a one-way news, we ask them to read a newspaper.
It does not correspond at all to their way of functioning intellectually.
When they ask themselves a question, they need to challenge.
I think they want to consume information, but maybe we need to invent new forms.
Are some of your viewers going to read the press?
Have you ever heard of testimony to this effect?
Everyday.
It is my great satisfaction.
I have young people who tell me “I bought my first newspaper” or “I no longer read the press, I reread it”.
It wasn't the goal, it wasn't at all why I was doing it, but I changed their outlook on the press by showing them that it was life stories that told the world in which we were living.
Beyond the informative side, it was also a way of becoming a full citizen.
I tell them that my conviction as a journalist is that a democracy needs free and strong newspapers because it needs enlightened citizens.
I really have an old man's speech (
laughs
).
Reaching an ever younger audience is a concern for the media.
Do you think Twitch is an answer to that?
I'm convinced of it, but there is a limit to interactivity, it's the massive side.
We know how to interact with a few thousand people, but I don't think we can manage it with millions.
There are products to be invented which cannot, in terms of mass, compare to the power of a newspaper with hundreds of thousands of copies or a newscast watched by five million people.
You can't have five million people asking you questions.
I don't believe in bringing together these two worlds, television and streaming, but more in bridges, in television people who would realize that there are indeed interesting things to create in this universe.
France Télévisions is back on Twitch.
Are you satisfied with this live and would you agree to embody the group's meetings on the platform?
A thousand times yes for a very precise reason: I launched my channel in my corner because I did not want to do that within the framework of France Télévisions.
I understood that the interest of this thing was freedom and therefore I did not want to place this initiative in a professional context.
Except that the thing is gone and from the second day, it is packed.
I got a phone call from France Télévisions and Laurent Guimier, the head of news, who has an essential role in this.
He calls me, congratulates me on my little personal initiative and tells me that he is very interested in it because he wants France Télévisions to go towards it.
A week later, he called me back to tell me that in four days, France Télévisions made its first stream.
I told them that we had to forget the studios, the beautiful cameras, the projectors because we must not send the message that we want to make television on Twitch but that we understood the specificity of this medium.
I know there is a form of mistrust on the part of Twitch streamers and viewers, who have been a little scalded by the somewhat mocking reports about the stream, the gamers.
There was a condescending boomer eye.
At the end of the stream, I was given a piece of paper that said "say it was a test balloon, that we were very happy and there will be more."
"
Maybe the media will all take to Twitch soon then ...
There is a kind of hype around Twitch and the message I tell people on TV is not to be interested in Twitch for the wrong reasons.
If you think you've found the right way to reach this famous young audience that everyone wants to reach, watch out.
Don't think of Twitch as a new pipe to dump TV stuff into.
If they don't go to watch TV, it's because it doesn't suit them.
Don't take Twitch for a pipe, it's a medium.
If you want to go there, you have to invent meetings that respect the codes, philosophy and values of this medium.
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