For a few years the summers on Telecinco have not been the best time of the year for the chain. In reality, the summers are not good, televisingly speaking, for any network. The good weather, the terrace, the heat, the little beach, the reunions focus the interest of the spectators more than sitting in front of the television. The loyalty of the audience plummets and it could be said that it is almost a miracle that something works and hits the firecracker on television at this time.
However, this summer there are those who have found the formula and have surprised with data that were unthinkable a few months ago for a time like this. The Summer Grand Prix is sweeping (26% audience share on the day of its premiere and 24% in the second program). What does this mean? Well, no matter how much you try to explain the audience debacle with the hackneyed phrase “it’s summer and people watch less television”, The Grand Prix has shown that if there is something that interests people, people are going to see it.
The 1 is doing its August, and never better said. The Grand Prix works for him, the Women’s Soccer World Cup works for him, The Promise continues to work for him, the data for 4 Estrellas continues to improve every night and its summer premieres, especially for prime time, although they are not breaking the audimeters -with the exception of The Grand Prix- are surpassing every night what until now was the second most watched channel in Spain: Telecinco. Yes, almost, but for La 1 its battery of premieres is working and not only is it not for Telecinco, but they are sinking the average audience for the channel.
They are two sides of the same coin. La 1 is recomposed, while Telecinco sinks to levels never seen in its 30-year history. In fact, in the month of July La 1 surpassed Telecinco, which has become the third channel chosen by viewers, marking an all-time low. The situation has reached such a point that in promoting Mediaset with the audience results it has decided to omit, not the programs released this summer, but any data on Telecinco.
It is true that Mediaset has placed all its hopes on the start of the new season next September with great and expected premieres such as GH VIP 8, but the debacle of audiences that the chain is marking this summer does not stop surprising, despite having bet by a large battery of premieres in an attempt to set the new course for the audiovisual group.
The problem is that of the seven programs released since the beginning of June, none is working for him. And it is not only that they do not work, it is that some are marking the worst audience data for decades.
In recent years, summer on Telecinco has never been a good time, especially in its prime time. While the rest of the year its reality shows saved the slot most coveted by the chains, in summer the second-rate or filler reality shows inevitably dropped the network’s audience data. However, the four hours of Sálvame from Monday to Friday, even if it was in the afternoon, avoided precisely what is happening now.
A few weeks ago, various audience experts assured this newspaper that the afternoons do not decant the audiences of a chain. That is, if you hold prime time, but you lose the afternoon, there is no problem. The worst thing is when you lose the afternoon and prime time and you lose it a lot. Precisely what is happening to Telecinco.
Last Friday, August 4, Telecinco’s audience data made visible the drama that the chain is experiencing. Telecinco marked a 7.9% share of the screen -of every hundred people, eight watched Telecinco-. It was only 0.9% away from being surpassed by laSexta, 0.4% of the data of La 1 (the public channel achieved 8.2%, and five points from Antena 3 (12.9%) , which continues to be the leading chain every day.
The reason for this terrible figure was the sum of some afternoons that did not raise their heads and the bad data harvested by La Última Noche, the program presented by Sandra Barneda and Pablo González -substitute for Deluxe-, which on Friday night, being his second program, garnered a very poor 5.6% audience (385,000 viewers). Telecinco’s prime time that night was behind Cuatro, which improved thanks to the cinema, on a night in which Password won again, despite the fact that the contest is not attracting large audiences either.
It was not a good night for almost any network. Only Password, the contest presented by Cristina Pedroche, despite dropping 1.2 points compared to the previous Friday, the day of the premiere, maintained one million viewers. The friendly between the Spanish basketball team and Venezuela did not give very good results to La 1 either, which remained at a 5.8% audience share with 524,000 viewers. The difference is that these bad data have become the dynamics of Telecinco this summer.
“The problem that Mediaset is experiencing is facing a change of model with very low audiences and without any clear strategy,” various television experts told EL MUNDO a few weeks ago, referring to the bad data that the chain was making in its afternoon. Now, the disaster in prime time has been added to the afternoons.
Of course it will not be because the main Mediaset chain is not trying. While the rest of the channels pull reruns and the occasional premiere, Telecinco has thrown the house out of the window with many premieres, but with few and bad results.
In the afternoon, the program that replaced Sálvame, Así es al vida, barely exceeds an 8% audience share and has not managed to exceed one million viewers for a single day since it was released. Not even removing the Lydia Bosch series, Mine is Vengeance, which is now broadcast on Divinity, has it managed to improve its audiences.
Sandra Barneda has had to dance with the ugliest this summer. Two of Telecinco’s premieres this summer are hosted by her and both are being a failure. Now, pointing to Sandra Barneda is a big mistake, since it is not a question of the presenter, who triumphs in other formats such as La isla de las tentaciones, but of the formats that do not finish convincing an audience, already remote of television in summer.
Prime time is not going much better. In fact, a few weeks ago the terrible time slot was the afternoon, but now it is, without a doubt, prime time. Telecinco premiered the Turkish series La traición and had to cancel it after the first broadcast, marking a 6.8% share of the screen. It slips me, the humor program by Lara Álvarez, has only managed to exceed the 10% share of the screen for two nights. The last one, on August 1, marked 7.4%. The cinema doesn’t work for them either. Two weeks ago Telecinco chose to broadcast Operación Camarón again, the film that in its first broadcast exceeded a 19% share. This time it did not exceed 9%.
His summer reality show, ¡Vaya Vacaciones!, is one step away from becoming the least watched reality show in the history of Telecinco. And Blanca Portillo’s series, Días mejoros, premiered last Monday, competing with El Grand Prix, had a 6.2% share. Of all the summer premieres on Telecinco, only Allá tú! is saved, which maintains decent data -this Sunday it reached one million viewers-, although not spectacular, and La vida sin filtros, the Saturday night program by Cristina Tárrega which, although the audience has been declining, has fought a battle for several weeks since its premiere. This Saturday, for example, it led the audiences and surpassed the cinema of La 1 and Antena 3 by more than one point.
Given this situation, many causes could be pointed out. The first, the audience crisis that Mediaset has been dragging on for almost two years and that in recent times has been increasing, while it seeks its new identity. A new identity that goes through trial and error. The problem is that when the audience data is so bad and nothing works for you, testing is a very difficult hill to climb.
It is clear that many of the programs released this summer are not going to continue after September: It slips, That’s life, What a vacation!… But La última noche has been announced as one of the formats of the new season. A season in which Mediaset will try to reverse this debacle with GH VIP 8, TardeAR, El musical de tu vida, the new season of Entrevías and major film premieres. But until the time comes, it will be difficult to stop a drop in audiences like the one Telecinco is experiencing this summer.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project