The perfect host

Quebec television host and producer Julie Snyder. (TVA)

In an era when networks are desperate to figure out what viewers want and how they want it, Quebec TV diva Julie Snyder may be the most clear-thinking hitmaker on the continent. Only 40, Snyder has been making addictive television for nearly two decades. Her fearless interviewing style and Lucille Ball-esque sense of the absurd — she once asked race car driver Jacques Villeneuve how he peed during a long race — has made her one of the most popular TV personalities in Quebec.

Snyder’s latest gig is hosting the No. 1 show in the province, Le Banquier, the Quebec version of the game show Deal or No Deal. In honor of Snyder’s 40th birthday, the first episode of the new season (Sept. 23) featured a surprise visit from her buds Céline Dion (who stepped in as host) and René Angelil (who played the banker). Three million Quebecers — nearly half the province — tuned in.

But even before the special season-opener, Le Banquier’s much-anticipated second run was already the talk of the town. In a greedy fall-audience grab, TVA, Le Banquier’s network, scheduled the game show opposite one of the only sustained hits on rival network Radio-Canada, the Sunday night talk-fest Tout le monde en parle. In response to the hostile move, TMOP host Guy A. Lepage publicly accused TVA of lacking respect for Quebec viewers. (If Snyder is the queen of talk TV in Quebec, Lepage is akin to the pope, and at times takes himself almost as seriously.) Monsieur Lepage is clearly afraid that la belle Julie, with her girl-next-door charm and uncanny ability to reach out and touch just about everyone in Quebec, will win this round in the Sunday-night ratings showdown.

Ultimately, TVA decided to slate Le Banquier an hour before TMOP, at 7 p.m. But what did they choose to broadcast opposite Lepage at 8? Another program touched by the hand of Queen Julie: Occupation Double, a dating show launched in 2003 by Snyder’s production company, Productions J. Occupation Double has drawn between 1.5 million and two million viewers every week for three years; the first episode of its fourth season pulled in nearly two million.

But the brightest jewel in Snyder’s crown is Star Académie (her version of the French talent show Star Academy), which ended its third run in 2005. With Snyder as producer and host, Star Académie I, II and III roused people to root for their favourite undiscovered talents the way that soccer fans root for their home teams. And although Quebecers didn’t take to the streets when singer Wilfred Le Bouthillier won the show’s first round in 2003, over 3.2 million viewers — an 80 per cent audience share — watched him do it.

Star Academie winner Stephanie Lapointe, right, reacts beside show host Julie Snyder after hearing a message from her boyfriend during the first season of the talent show in 2004. (Francois Roy/Canadian Press)

Why is “Julie,” as Snyder is known to her fans, so good at reading popular TV tastes? In the case of Star Académie, Snyder had a very specific idea of what would work. “I knew it couldn’t be like American Idol, where people are humiliated. That couldn’t fly in Quebec. We don’t like to laugh at people,” she says in a telephone interview jammed between a business meeting and picking up her son from the babysitter. “The show had to be democratic. We wanted people from all over Quebec with real talent to come out and give it a try.”

For Snyder, Star Académie — which, some critics sniped, combines the worst of American Idol and Big Brother — was no hokey talent contest. It was a serious star-making school. Instructors included heavyweight Quebec producer and director Denise Filiatrault; Céline Dion’s husband and manager, René Angélil; and novelist and public intellectual Denise Bombardier. Even Quebec’s then-premier, Bernard Landry, appeared on the show to chat with contestants. Snyder hired a live orchestra and some of the biggest names in Quebec entertainment to perform with her prodigies. “I wanted the show to be part of family life, like Sunday mass,” she says.

What sets Snyder apart as a content producer in the multi-channel universe is her belief that in Quebec, TV watching should be a unifying family ritual. Her audience is like no other in North America: It’s mainly white and French speaking, and relatively homogeneous in its outlook and tastes. For historical and cultural reasons, Quebec francophones have a uniquely intimate connection to the magic box. When they watch or appear on le tivi, as it’s referred to here, they are en famille — together as a family. Snyder may understand this better than anyone working in Quebec television.

In fact, she seems to approach making TV as though she’s organizing a family reunion. For both Star Académie and Occupation Double, special buses travelled to communities across Quebec to select the contestants; extended families and cheering hometowns were an integral part of the buzz surrounding both shows.

Le Banquier is similarly warm and fuzzy. Unlike Deal or No Deal host Howie Mandel, who is a reputed germaphobe, Snyder says she feels close to the contestants and likes to hug them and shake their hands. (The chance of a caress from Julie may be why over 10,000 Quebecers applied to be on the show in 2007.) Le Banquier also focuses on personal stories. In one weepy show, a contestant said the cash prize would allow her to spend a few extra years at home with her baby. We even got to see the little girl in her playpen. The Quebec version of Deal or No Deal isn’t about money as it is in the U.S.; it’s about family values.

In a 2004 column in the Montreal Gazette newspaper, writer Josée Legault pointed out that openly criticizing either the quality of Star Académie or its omnipresence was viewed by fans and many media commentators in the province as “heresy, or in its milder, equally ridiculous version, as ‘elitist.’” Legault was one of few journalists to point out that Star Académie and its contestants were dream vehicles for Quebecor Inc.’s experiment with media convergence.

Snyder, right, balances a tea set on her head as contestant Isabelle Caissy looks on during a taping of Le Banquier. (TVA)

Quebecor owns TVA, the network that broadcasts Star Académie and all of Snyder’s other shows. Quebecor’s myriad properties ensured that Star Académie was ubiquitous in Quebec. Through its cable provider Vidéotron, it fed the show and the details of contestants’ lives to Internet subscribers. Quebecor’s numerous tabloids and entertainment magazines were similarly saturated with Académie gossip, just as they have been for Le Banquier, Occupation Double and every other documentary and TV special Snyder is involved in. (In a rare display of anti-Star Académie sentiment, a group of disgruntled students founded their own website, Star Épidémie — Star Epidemic.)

Snyder and Quebecor CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau have been a couple since 2001. In a 2003 article in Report on Business magazine, they were celebrated for making media convergence work when empires like CanWest Global and AOL Time Warner were struggling. Following the first season of Star Academie — Snyder’s baby — Quebecor Media, which had seen losses of $650 million in 2001 and 2002, recorded a $32.2-million profit in the first quarter of 2003.

Having Céline Dion and René Angélil as advisors puts Snyder at an advantage. But the real locomotive behind her success is her seductive personality. She once wore a paper bag over her head to interview French actress Catherine Deneuve, ostensibly to demonstrate she was intimidated by the grande dame’s beauty and style. And, in a now-infamous interview with Serge Gainsbourg when she was just 23, Snyder asked the iconic French singer to describe the most beautiful gift he had ever given a woman. “My penis,” Gainsbourg responded lasciviously, personifying what so many Quebecers, particularly women, detest about the culture of their former colonizers: its arrogance and sexism. Snyder shot back: “In this case, it’s not for the giver to judge, but the recipient.”

By deftly putting Gainsbourg in his place, she did exactly what her audience wanted her to do. Snyder later described the interview as the first one that “clicked” for her. It clearly established her style as a crowd pleaser. “I’ve always maintained that I don’t have a boss, that the audience is my boss,” she says. It’s an approach that has served her well.

Le Banquier airs on TVA at 7 p.m. Sundays and on Thursdays at 8 p.m.

Patricia Bailey is a writer based in Montreal.

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