Jaime Cantizano says, almost as a warning, that “smiling does not make you unconscious or an imbecile”, and that is the spirit that is breathed in the presentation of Mañaneros, the weapon with which RTVE aspires to win the throne in the morning after the passage to the afternoon of Ana Rosa Quintana, undisputed queen for more than three decades.
“It is a challenge, but it is also an opportunity, we have to be patient and insist, insist, insist,” acknowledges the Jerez-born presenter, who from next Monday will take over from La Hora de La 1 together with Miriam Moreno and Marc Santandreu with a magazine structured around three tables -politics, society and heart- and with an author’s leitmotif: «There is a different way of telling things». And the smile appears.
The very large Mañaneros team talks non-stop about “family”, and affirms that their idea is to sneak into the halls as one more, from the closeness that comes from having the entire structure of RTVE reporters. “We have gone to the market and we have bought the freshest products to move little by little towards the leadership of the mornings”, says the director of the space Eduardo Blanco.
Among these “products” are the ambitious signings for the political table, quite a declaration of intent: the former leader of Podemos Carolina Bescansa, the former deputy mayor of Madrid Begoña Villacís, the former president of the Junta de Extremadura Guillermo Fernández Vara and the former Foreign Minister José Manuel García Margallo.
At a time of maximum political upheaval and despite the big names, Cantizano pleads for calm. He already knows, about the smile. “The formula of the magazine must be based fundamentally on entertainment,” he says, “the vast majority of citizens are not as stressed as the media transmit, we do not live in a trench.”
For this reason, after a start of transition focused on the present, the basis of the new La 1 magazine is “accompanying the whole family.” With the different generations in mind, Mañaneros incorporates a way of narrating directly from social networks.
Three influencers will share their teachings with viewers. They are Los Conectados: Enrique Álex, who visits destinations around the world defending sustainable tourism; Adoración Ramos, Tik Tok’s cooking grandmother who will reveal the secrets of her recipes from her own kitchen; and Johnny Stock, an expert in finance and consumption.
The goal is twofold: on the one hand, to incorporate a young audience, more reluctant to linear TV; on the other, showing the elderly a reality that is in many cases foreign to them. “We are going to try to get all generations to live together,” says Cantizano. He will also print the rhythm of TikTok the tandem of reporters Los Canarios, Dani González and Alberto Catalán, who will look for the faces and tails of the news. “We need people with an accent so that the territories feel represented,” says the presenter, “this is also a way of creating a family.”
The heart table also holds surprises. Together with María Eugenia Yagüe, Diego Reinares and Alberto Guzmán, La 1 recovers the veteran journalist Pepa Jiménez, who has been away from the screens for 13 years and agreed to abandon her “grandmother’s” life for only one reason, or a name, rather : «The last thing I did on television was with Jaime Cantizano [¿Dónde estás corazón?, en Antena 3]. It made sense that my return would be with him.
The man from Jerez had been away from the cameras for some time and sheltered in the airwaves. He will not leave Finally it is not Monday, that he has been driving on Onda Cero on weekends for seven years, but he has been very clear that the afternoons are for his personal life and his family: «I am inflexible. With this rhythm, I have to save a space for myself ».
Regarding the pressure of the audiences, he tries to relativize: «It is true that I have punished myself a lot with the data, but I have been chewing on it in a different way for a long time. My generation was brought up that she had to succeed no matter what. Young people have another way of seeing it, they want more space to live, and I have imbued myself with that spirit.
