While most Spaniards do not want August to end and the so-called September slope to begin, Mediaset is waiting like rain in May for the worst summer in its history to end and the new season in which the audiovisual group has placed all its hopes to begin and all their efforts to get out of a terrible crisis that reached its zenith in the month of August.
Although what was described as the post-Vasile revolution was supposed to start many months ago, the reality is that practically every premiere of the group has been a setback, especially in these summer months. Cancellations due to low audience ratings, daily programs that have never exceeded one million viewers, screen shares even below 9%… A sum and continues that last July already caused the sorpasso of La 1 a Telecinco and that in this month of August it has been repeated again.
Telecinco has marked in this month of August the lowest screen share since it was born in 1990: 8.9%. Which also means that the main Mediaset chain has once again recorded its historical monthly minimum for the second consecutive month, a fact that had not happened in the entire history of the chain.
Not only did it fail to exceed a 9% share in the month of August, but it also lost 0.4% compared to the previous month and 2.1% compared to August 2022.
In addition, it is once again the third channel chosen by viewers behind La 1, which in this month of August not only manages to surpass Telecinco but also exceeds the 10% share of the screen for the first time in many months, closing the month August with a 10.3% share, almost 1.5% more than Telecinco.
But, without a doubt, the channel that continues to be the queen of linear television is Antena 3. Although in the month of August it lost screen share, Antena 3 achieved a 11.9% share -1.6 points more than its immediate competitor, La 1, and 3 points more than Telecinco- and all this without major premieres during this summer season in which the time that Spaniards spend watching TV decreases like at no other time of the year.
Thus, Antena 3 chains 22 consecutive months as the leading television with the greatest advantage with Telecinco in a month of August in 25 years. The main Atresmedia channel is once again the leader in news (44 consecutive months), while those of Telecinco record their worst data since September 1993, 10.9%; it has the most watched programs on television, such as Pasapalabra (19%) or La roulette de la suerte (20.4%); and achieves four of the five most followed series by viewers with Brothers, Love is Forever, Original Sin and Family Secrets, taking away only La Promesa from La 1.
In addition, this month it achieved the triple crown: Atresmedia is the leading group with a 25.5% share of the screen -it leads with the greatest distance in August over Mediaset since 2009-; Antena 3 is the most watched channel with 11.9% -it achieves the greatest advantage since 1998 in an August with Telecinco-; and, finally, it is once again the undisputed leader in prime time, the time slot with the highest television consumption and the most valued by advertisers, and in which Antena 3 achieves a 12.1% share of the screen, 3.9% more than that of Telecinco.
And it is that Telecinco also registers a record low in prime time (8.2% share), also ahead in this stellar strip by La 1 and also below the pay and regional channels.
The reason for this decline in the prime time slot on television is none other than the poor audience data for the string of summer premieres on Telecinco. Only ¡Allá tú!, the contest presented by Jesús Vázquez exceeded the 10% audience share and did so on August 6. The rest of the premieres in prime time, although some have led some nights, such as La vida sin filtros, have not exceeded double digits, there were even days when certain programs, such as La última noche, were they were below 6% of the screen share, a terrible figure for a strip like prime time.
The problem does not lie in which program on a certain channel leads in this or that slot, since, for example, Así es la vida, the substitute for Sálvame, has managed to become the leader in the afternoons for almost the entire month of August. The problem is the low screen quotas achieved by the Telecinco programs. A 9% share means that out of every 100 viewers only nine were watching that program.
To this we must add that in the case of Antena 3 or La 1 programs, the share of their programs exceeds 10% most of the time. This month, the case of La 1 is more special, because thanks to the Women’s World Cup or the leadership in the mornings achieved by La hora de La 1, Silvia Intxaurrondo’s program, the data from the public channel has skyrocketed.
However, it is not all bad news for Mediaset. Despite the collapse of its main chain, the audiovisual group manages to grow 3 tenths compared to last month. And although Atresmedia is once again the leading group, the Berlusconi family group manages to save the day and catch some breath thanks to its thematic channels. Although it must be borne in mind that Mediaset has one more channel than Atresmedia, Energy, FDF, Divinity, Be Mad and Boeing have a larger audience than Telecinco: they reach a 10.5% share compared to 8.9% for the main channel or 5.3% for Cuatro -laSexta closed August at 5.7%-.
All in all, the arrival of the month of September with the great premieres announced by Telecinco and with the radical change of the entire grid of the chain is the great hope of Mediaset. GH VIP 8, Chinese Tales, TardeAR and Mediaset’s new mornings with Ana Terradillos and Joaquín Prat are the programs with which Mediaset will try to turn around an increasingly pronounced audience crisis.
