Neither GH VIP, nor Cuentos Chinos – canceled after only 10 programs -, nor El musical de tu vida, nor the afternoons… None of Telecinco’s big premieres to start the season in which its resurrection was going to begin is working as They should work. The result: Telecinco records its worst historical start to the season, a 9.6% audience share, and the third worst month in its entire history after the consecutive lows of July and August, according to data from Barlovento Comunicación.

However, history repeats itself: in the month of September, Antena 3, the television that grows the most in September, has been the leading network for 23 consecutive months and achieves the greatest advantage in 26 years with Telecinco at the start of the season. It achieves a 13% audience share and also gives the leadership to its group, Atresmedia (26.8%), while Mediaset falls to its worst start of the season (24.6%).

In second place, La 1, which reaches 10.5% audience share and once again exceeds double digits for the second consecutive month thanks to the successes of MasterChef Celebrity, football, La Promesa and Feijóo’s failed investiture.

The crisis of image, identity and audiences that the main Mediaset network has been experiencing for exactly two years, since it was in September 2021 when Antena 3 took away its leadership, had to begin to be resolved now thanks to the avalanche of premieres that it had scheduled for start the new direction of the new Telecinco: GH VIP, TardeAR, Let’s see, La Mirada Crítica, Cuentos Chinos, El musical de tu vida…

At the moment, both remain above the network average, but they are far from achieving the objective for which they were chosen: to once again be the leading television. In fact, this Thursday, Mediaset announced the sudden cancellation of Cuentos Chinos “after not having obtained the expected results.”

And the changes in the so-called new Telecinco are not working as expected. Although the network improves by one point compared to last August’s audience, it is still very far from the data that will allow it to get out of this crisis once and for all.

GH VIP 8 has only managed to exceed one million viewers on the day of its premiere and in the first debate. Since then, the return of the reality show brings together an average of about 900,000 viewers and obtains a screen share of no more than 12% on average. Bad data if compared to the last edition of GH VIP. For example, the premiere of GH VIP 8 on September 14 garnered a 13.4% audience share, 11.2 points less than the premiere of its last edition four years ago.

In fact, the program has been falling in audiences gala after gala and program after program. The first debate gave some hope, exceeding the 14% share, but the joy in the poor man’s house did not last long, because the next program the audiences clicked again. So much so, that this Thursday Telecinco also decided to cancel the Tuesday program after only two broadcasts and replace it with cinema.

Starting Monday, however, Lara Álvarez will be in charge of the last hour of GH VIP that will replace Jorge Javier Vázquez’s program, while on Thursdays GH VIP Express will continue, the program that began airing last Thursday with the intention that the bad audience data for Cuentos Chinos does not drag GH VIP 8 any further, but that the data has not improved either, taking into account that this Thursday it fell to 7.6% and 941,000, losing more than one point and almost 200,000 spectators compared to the previous Thursday.

Without a doubt, a setback for the network that had all its hopes pinned on the reality show. But it is not only the bad data of GH VIP, it is also the weak results at the moment of TardeAR after the change of Ana Rosa Quintana to the afternoon slot.

While Ana Rosa’s Program led the mornings with a comfortable margin over its competitors and there was no way to beat it, the journalist’s departure in the afternoon and the changes made to Susanna Griso’s program have led to Antena 3 being on the verge of take the crown of the mornings. In fact, Telecinco is also about to lose its morning hours.

Atresmedia’s main channel, which leads in the rest of the slots, in news, series and entertainment programs, has achieved historic growth in the morning slot this September. With a 13.3% screen share from Monday to Friday, Espejo Público has reduced its distance with Telecinco’s mornings to just 0.2%. It is the shortest distance between Antena 3 and the Mediaset network in this area since 2016.

With the results of the mornings and the afternoons, many television experts are beginning to think that Ana Rosa’s move to the afternoon “has been a mistake.” “If you had a program that worked very well in the morning and that kept you a leader in that slot, making changes to the only slot that worked for you does not seem like the best idea,” they assure this newspaper.

If we look at the audience data in the afternoon slot from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. (the two hours of strict coincidence between Sonsoles Ónega and Ana Rosa Quintana) Antena 3 is still very strong. Although since the premiere of TardeAR, the program has beaten And Now Sonsoles twice, Antena 3 reinforces its leadership in the afternoon slot with a 12.3% screen share from Monday to Friday. Achieves the best distance with Telecinco since September since 2005, more than 2.3 points.

In fact, And now Sonsoles (11.8% average screen share and 886,000 viewers) starts the season as the leader and surpasses Telecinco by 1.6%. Since the premiere of TardeAR, and with permission from La Promesa, it remains the leader and grows at 12%. In the band of strict coincidence, Sonsoles Ónega also surpasses Ana Rosa Quintana by one point: 11.8% compared to 10.8%.

Prime time, the prime time slot for advertisers, does not leave good news for Telecinco either. It is its worst prime time at the beginning of the season (9% audience share), ahead again in this stellar slot by La 1 and also below the pay and regional networks.

All in all, Antena 3 has been the leader 80% of the days in the month of September; Of the 60 most watched broadcasts, Antena 3 achieves 58 – only two RTVE soccer matches sneak into that ranking. While you have to go to broadcast 127 to find a Telecinco broadcast in the ranking of the most watched of the month.

A more than complicated situation, since the chain has changed practically its entire grill to try to escape once and for all from what its CEO, Alessandro Salem, described as a “journey through the desert.” It is not only that it is moving further and further away from the leading television, but that it has already accumulated three consecutive months in third position and, that, with all the artillery already launched and with La 1 pushing hard and Antena 3 consolidating its results.

What Telecinco is not going to stop is to insist until they find the formula that once again gives them the keys to recover the success of yesteryear. “When you reach a moment where you are losing strength, the temptation is to conform. That is the challenge. It is not to reject the previous but to improve. And that is what we are doing,” Salem assured less than a month ago at the presentation of the new Telecinco.

“When you change you suffer torment and it is like that on television too,” said the CEO, aware that “evolving on television is vital,” and this is now his main objective no matter what the cost.