The decision by RTVE’s Director of General Content José Pablo López to keep The Best in History in prime time on Fridays despite its discreet initial results dropped La 1’s prime time last night to a dramatic 3.3% share and 373,000 spectators.
The public records its worst figure in prime time since Brigada Tech premiered almost 1 years ago (funded with 4.5 million euros from the Next Generation funds) with a horrible 2.8% that forced López to relocate it to the weekend mornings on La 1 and La 2.
The Best in History, which is an adaptation of the British BBC format 100 Greatest Britons with Silvia Intxaurrondo at the helm, started on February 16 with a sad 6.8% that fell to 5.1% in its second installment , remained with another 5.1% last week and yesterday it sank to 3.3% share, which represents one of the worst historical figures for La 1 since audiences were measured in Spain (1990).
Last night, the writer Miguel de Cervantes entered the final by beating Diego Velázquez after Dolores Ibarruri ‘La Pasionaria’, Jesús Hermida, Manuel de Falla, Matías Prats, Adolfo Suárez and Pau Gasol had been ruled out
Aníbal Gómez, Anabel Alonso, Juanma López Iturriaga, Carmen Lomana and Juan Luis Cano collaborated in this fourth installment that was swept by Antena 3’s El Desafío (12.6%), Friday! on Telecinco (9.5%), Liam Neeson’s cycle on Cuatro (which reached a superb 8.7% with the film An Honest Thief) or even the film Heroína broadcast within Historia de Nuestro Cine on La 2 (3, 7% share).
The low data of La 1 is striking considering that neither Antena 3 nor Telecinco stood out in prime time compared to El Mejor de la historia, a failure that can hardly be attributed to Intxaurrondo (magnet for audiences with La hora de La 1 , which yesterday scored a positive 11.5%).
The public assures that the objective of the program is to find “the most relevant and admired figure in our history” among 50 characters chosen from a previous list of 150 that was prepared by a committee of experts.
Awards, salaries and controversies
RTVE has disbursed 1,959,785.44 euros plus VAT for the 6 installments that make up El Mejor, which in its two remaining chapters could be relocated to another less competitive schedule after having fallen to La 2’s own data.
Silvia Intxaurrondo pockets 150,000 euros for this work in the midst of controversy after having denied that RTVE gave the green light to its renewal on the same day that she interviewed Alberto Núñez Feijóo to present and co-direct La Hora de La 1 for 2 years in exchange for 537,000 euros. which we already explained is a price even lower than other communicators who have led the public mornings.
The renewal of Silvia Intxaurrondo’s contract on TVE has reopened the debate about the salaries received by presenters on the public channel. The journalist is hired for two years as host and co-director of the morning program La Hora de La 1. In addition, she combines this work with another program that the station broadcasts in prime time: El mejor de la historia.
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Intxaurrondo, winner of the ‘8M awards. 8 Women, 8 Motivos’, from the Government Delegation in Madrid, she is being accused by some media of being spoiled by RTVE for her tense interview with Núñez Feijóo, to whom the journalist denied a falsehood live.
It should be remembered that the producer of The best in history is The Pool, factory of Andrés Varela Entrecanales, who is a shareholder of Grupo Prisa and co-producer of the unpublished documentary series about Pedro Sánchez. Varela Entrecanales produced the failed Let’s get along (RTVE paid 3,529,011.06 euros for 10 episodes). The program premiered with 4.8% and, after going through workshops, it returned in the summer with an average of 7.1%.
TVE’s 1 fell in February to third place with 9.8% after six months reaching double digits and surpassing Telecinco, which started March almost 2 points below the signal of Media for Europe (formerly Mediaset España) .
The failure of The best in history dragged the first state public channel until a daily average of 7.7% share with which it surpasses La Sexta by just 3 tenths. Antena 3 (13.7%) and Telecinco (9.9%) remained well above the channel directed by José Pablo López. Even Cuatro or La 2 surpassed the format.
This Friday’s data rounds off a ‘horrible week’ for TVE’s La 1, which opted on Tuesday to recover Sewing masters (which returned with a minimum, 8.5% share), on Wednesday it programmed the film Under the Same Roof (which was overwhelmed in a competitive night with 7.6%) and on Thursday it repeated again with the sewing reality show (which fell to 6.8% before the premiere of Survivors and an episode of the series Between Earths).
