Controversial French TV host Cyril Hanouna will “start a new chapter” when he launches his M6 chat show in September, according to M6 boss David Larramendy.
Larramendy addressed reports head on that Hanouna is soon joining M6 for a pre-evening show on the W9 network, which comes in a week that Hanouna criticized an M6 radio host and ended his long-running series Touche Pas à Mon Poste! (Don’t Touch My TV Set!)
“Cyril Hanouna is very talented, is one of the last TV stars and all audiences can relate [to him],” Larramendy told Series Mania today. “We don’t want to exclude anyone. He has said things that were wrong and things we disagreed with and we told him. He is starting a new chapter.”
Larramendy said Hanouna’s new show will steer clear of politics. “We’re not a political company and don’t intend to do political so it will be entertainment,” he said.
Watch on Deadline
The outspoken Hanouna has landed himself in hot water several times in the past. Larramendy said M6 and Hanouna “had a conversation” earlier this week after he criticized his soon-to-be M6 presenting colleague Bruno Guillon.
Elsewhere during a wide-ranging Series Mania session, Larramendy spotlighted how M6 is no longer reliant on American imports to fill its schedules.
According to Larramendy, M6 was airing American shows on 150 nights per year a decade ago and that number has now been cut down to just 30.
“So we replaced 120 programs,” he said. “U.S. TV series have become platform based products and they are successful but we don’t really show them on linear TV anymore. So the 120 were replaced by local investments – we do series, new brands, docs and other shows.”
The network has challenging targets to double its number of hours viewed on new streamer M6+ by 2028 while tripling sales and Larramendy said the Bertelsmann-owned outfit “may in fact be early” hitting these targets, after seeing hours viewed rise from 75 million hours to 100 million last year.
He was speaking at Series Mania before the bosses of France Télévisions and Arte.
The post Controversial French TV Host Cyril Hanouna Will “Start A New Chapter” On M6, Says David Larramendy — Series Mania appeared first on Deadline.
