Thierry Ardisson


Thierry Ardisson was a French television producer and host. He was also a film producer, writer, and advertising executive.
He began his career in advertising by founding the agency Business, then moved into print media. He made his television debut in the late 1980s with shows such as Bains de minuit and Lunettes noires pour nuits blanches. After a brief withdrawal in the early 1990s, the man nicknamed “the man in black” returned with several successful programs.
Some of his television programs are considered among the most influential and have some of the longest run times in French television, notably Paris Dernière,''Tout le monde en parle,'' On a tout essayé, and Salut les Terriens!, later renamed Les Terriens du samedi!.
He was the author of several books, including best-sellers such as Louis XX – Contre-enquête sur la Monarchie and Confessions d’un Baby boomer. In 2013, he released and produced the French movie Max.
Ardisson was a Legitimist French Royalist and a friend of Louis Alphonse de Bourbon, the current Legitimist claimant to the French throne.

Early life

Thierry Ardisson was born on January 6, 1949, in Bourganeuf, in the Creuse department, where his family had temporarily relocated for a construction project. He spent part of his early childhood in Algeria, where his father worked on restoring the Mers El Kébir military base. He has a younger brother, Patrick.
Thierry’s parents are originally from the Nice region in southern France. His mother, Juliette Renée Gastinel, was a homemaker, and his father, Victor Ardisson, was a civil engineer working in the construction sector, notably for the company founded by André Borie, which required the family to move frequently.
In 1957, the family moved to Arêches in the Beaufortain area of Savoie, as his father was assigned to the construction of the Roselend Dam, one of France’s largest. Ardisson attended Collège Saint-Michel and later earned a degree in English from the University of Montpellier Paul Valéry.
At age 17, while working as a DJ at the Whisky à Gogo nightclub in Juan-les-Pins, Ardisson had a first homosexual experience, which he details in his autobiography Confessions d'un baby-boomer.

Career

Early career in advertising and journalism

Thierry Ardisson began his career as a copywriter in advertising. In 1969, he moved to Paris and was hired in the sales promotion department at BBDO, then at TBWA, and later at Ted Bates, before co-founding his own agency, Business, in 1978 with Éric Bousquet and Henri Baché.
While working at Business, Ardisson invented the 8-second TV ad format, enabling advertisers with limited budgets to access TV advertising.
As a copywriter, he is also credited with creating several memorable advertising slogans for French consumers:
  • "Ovomaltine, c'est de la dynamique!"
  • "Vas-y Wasa!"
  • "Lapeyre, y en a pas deux!"
  • "Chaussée aux Moines:
  • "Quand c’est trop, c’est Tropico!"
These slogans foreshadowed gimmicks used in his later television shows, such as Magnéto, Serge! and Qu'est-ce qu'on écoute, Corti?.
The Business agency also supplied "turnkey" articles to the French press, including the series L’Hebdo des Savanes and Descentes de Police.
In the mid-1970s, Ardisson contributed to the underground magazine, Façade alongside Alain Benoist, Jean-Luc Maître, and Laurent Laclos. During this period, he is a regular at Le Palace nightclub.
In 1984, Ardisson was hired as the vice-director of publications for the Hachette-Filipacchi press group. He subsequently took over the magazine L’Écho des savanes, which he temporarily renamed L’Hebdo des Savanes. The topics covered, considered too provocative, led to his discharge.
But in 1992, he worked a new partnership with Hachette-Filipacchi and launched the magazine Interview. A year later, after losing a plagiarism lawsuit brought by the American magazine Interview, he was forced to rename it Entrevue. He eventually sold his shares of the company back to Hachette-Filipacchi in 1995.
In 1998, together with Francis Morel, Alexis Kebbas and the Springer editions, Ardisson launched the consumer magazine J’économise which peaked at 420,000 prints.

Career in television

1980s

In 1980, in the course of the interviews that his agency Business conducted for French newspapers and magazines, Ardisson interviewed French tennis player Yannick Noah who admitted to smoking hashish and that tennis players regularly took amphetamines before the games, a scandal that led to his first appearance on television.
In 1985, at the suggestion of producer Marie-France Brière, Ardisson adapted his press interviews for the French TV network TF1, a program in which guest personalities were subjected to a harsh and abrupt police-style interrogation. The concept – too brutal and provocative – got censored by French media authorities and the show taken off the air a few months later. With the support of Hervé Bourges, who had given him carte blanche, he nevertheless remained at TF1 and hosted Scoop à la une.
From 1986 to 1987, he co-produced À la folie pas du tout with Catherine Barma, hosted by Patrick Poivre d’Arvor. In 1987, Thierry Ardisson sold his shares in his advertising agency Business and founded the TV production company Ardisson & Lumières.
From September 1987 to June 1988, together with Catherine Barma, he created and served as artistic director for the show Face à France on La Cinq TV network, hosted by Guillaume Durand; Bains de minuit, a so-called trendy late-night show which he presented from the nightclub Les Bains Douches; and Childéric, a hit parade show hosted by Childéric Muller. On 9 September 1988, alongside DJ Claude Challe, co-owner of Les Bains Douches, he presented on Antenne 2 the Prince concert in Dortmund, Germany.
From 1988 to 1990, he hosted Lunettes noires pour nuits blanches from the Palace, a famous nightclub, on Antenne 2 in late-night Saturday slot. The program, intended as a rock show, replaced Les Enfants du rock, which had just ended. The show’s title was taken from an advertising slogan he had coined for Glamor sunglasses ten years earlier. For this program, he devised the concept of “formatted interviews” such as Interview première fois, Auto-interview, and Questions cons. The show was later parodied on La télé des Inconnus, notably with Didier Bourdon imitating Ardisson, Bernard Campan parodying Laurent Baffie, and Pascal Légitimus parodying the host Arthur. Much later, Guillaume Durand described Ardisson as “one of the greatest interviewers of the past thirty years: his very long shoots produced daring, risky interviews.” In parallel, still working with Catherine Barma, he co-produced Stars à la barre for Antenne 2, initially hosted by Roger Zabel and later by Daniel Bilalian.
Afterwards, Ardisson took over the Saturday 7 p.m. slot with Télé Zèbre, featuring Yves Mourousi, Françoise Hardy, Philippe Manœuvre and two newcomers, Yvan Le Bolloc'h and Bruno Solo.

1990s

In June 1990, he hosted a documentary, Rolling Stones: The Impossible Twins, on Antenne 2.
From 1991 to 1992, he presented Double Jeu on Antenne 2 in late night, featuring hidden-camera sketches by Laurent Baffie, Philippe Guérin’s quiz “Info or Intox,” and Philippe Corti’s music blind test. Considered too provocative, the program was canceled by France 2 management in early January 1993. A month later, he returned on France 2 with Ardimat, a show in which the host threatened to kill his dog if ratings fell. The program lasted ten episodes before being taken off the air as well.
From 1992 to 1994, he produced Frou-Frou, hosted by Christine Bravo and also attempted, unsuccessfully, to launch a print magazine of the same name. He also produced the shows Graines de Stars and Flashback.
In January 1993, he presented Cœur d'Ardishow on France 2, a retrospective of his previous programs. In 1994, after the failure of Ardimat and Autant en emporte le temps, he stepped back from hosting but remained a producer, notably of Graines de star and FlashBack on M6 with Laurent Boyer.
In 1995, he produced the Fringe time for TF1, Les Niouzes, with Laurent Ruquier. Following poor ratings, he requested that the program be taken off the air after its first week. That same year, he produced and hosted Paris Dernière on the French cable channel Paris Première.
From 1995 to 1998, he produced Top Flop for Paris Première, hosted by Alexandra Kazan.
Starting in 1997, he hosted Rive droite / Rive gauche with Frédéric Beigbeder, Élisabeth Quin and Philippe Tesson, regaining success after several years of setbacks and failures. In partnership with the Lagardère group and Sony Television, he also created Free One, a planned 24/7 live TV channel intended for distribution on Canal satellite and cable, but which never launched. During the summer of 1997, Thierry Ardisson produced Vue sur la mer, hosted by Maïtena Biraben.
In 1998, he returned to France 2 to host Tout le monde en parle alongside Laurent Ruquier, then Linda Hardy, Kad et Olivier and finally Laurent Baffie, on Saturday late night.
During the summer of 1999, he co-hosted, alongside Laurent Ruquier, an episode of Le Grand Tralala, a late-night entertainment program in which the host or hosts were unaware of the show’s content.

2000s

In 2003, Thierry Ardisson launched Tribu on France 2, a quarterly prime-time program that failed to attract viewers and was replaced in 2004 by Opinion publique, which met with no greater success.
From 2003 to June 2007, he simultaneously hosted 93, faubourg Saint-Honoré on Paris Première, a dinner held at his own Parisian apartment during which he conversed with a panel of various celebrities.
In 2004, he co-hosted a live broadcast on France 2 with Michel Drucker dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the Normandy landings. In 2005, again with Drucker and broadcast live, he presented Le Plus Grand Français de tous les temps on France 2, and in September 2005, he co-produced Concerts sauvages on France 4.
At the end of the 2005–2006 season, Ardisson left France 2 after a contractual disagreement.The new management of France Télévisions enforced the principle of exclusivity for public-service hosts after he signed with Paris Première for a new season of 93, faubourg Saint-Honoré. Ardisson refused to terminate his contract with Paris Première and was therefore forced to leave France Télévisions. In an open letter to Patrick de Carolis, Chairman and CEO of France Télévisions, in May 2006, Ardisson lamented his departure: “It’s a miracle you are killing.” He pointed out that he had signed an exclusivity contract with France 2 preventing him from appearing on another terrestrial general-interest channel. However, Paris Première, a cable and satellite channel, was available on the encrypted pay-TV TNT package. France 2 nonetheless considered Paris Première to be a general-interest terrestrial channel and demanded enforcement of the exclusivity clause.
Thierry Ardisson then joined the French semi-private TV network Canal+. Starting on 4 November 2006, he produced, with Stéphane Simon, and hosted Salut les Terriens! every Saturday evening in early prime time on free-to-air. The show attracted an average of 750,000 viewers in its first year.
On 5 April 2008, to celebrate the host’s twenty years on television, the channel Jimmy broadcast a two-part documentary, Ardisson: 20 ans d'antenne, directed by Patrick Kieffer and Marie-Ève Chamard.