Santi Acosta’s guru has told him to concentrate on what he does and not to pay attention to the hearings. It’s going to be complicated. The former presenter of historic formats such as Salsa Rosa or La Dolce Vita has a difficult task. He and Beatriz Archidona, his companion on this trip ¡De Viernes!, will have to resurrect the heart programs on Telecinco, the network that took television cuore to unimaginable limits. But not anymore. Telecinco no longer wants interviews that end like the rosary of Aurora or deranged characters, it wants to put an end to “the stigma of the heart,” says Archidona.
And for this, who better than a Santi Acosta who has already lived the most critical moments of the heart programs, so he knows the dark side, and a Beatriz Archidona for whom this new bet, produced by Mandarina, is a challenge that It gives him “vertigo”, but with which he feels like a fish in water: “Everyone likes the heart, it is in our daily lives, you always want to know more. That’s why with ¡De Viernes! we open the house for a little while, for a coffee, for a dinner, so that they can stay the night and feel like staying there.
After the cancellation of Sálvame el mundo del corazón on Telecinco, it had been relegated to the huddles of the network’s magazines. After so many years being the champions of the pink chronicle on television, the new Telecinco needed to rethink: how to recover a heartfelt program in which it is only listened to and respected, but does not stop bringing big bombs? Six months later and after the disaster of The Last Night, they are sure they have found it.
“We want to return to the social chronicle,” says Jaime Guerra, director of the Content Production division of Mediaset España. “Many programs have been made and the big difference between this one and all of them is, in addition to the presence of Santi and Beatriz, the five collaborators who will be part of the program exclusively,” he reveals. He doesn’t want to say who they are or give a single detail. “Whoever wants to know should put ‘De Viernes!’ on Friday,” he says, laughing, but forcefully. It is only known that they are five journalists from radio, television and the written press who are experts in social reporting. They don’t want anything to get out of hand, although “we will also have our hooligan point,” Acosta confesses.
The passion of the program is to listen to stories, to give a character the opportunity to expand and explain themselves without judging them.
Friday! It is therefore committed to a renewed story of the social chronicle that will feature each week an on-set interview with an important celebrity in the section called VIP Chair; a great exclusive in El Scoop; a heartfelt tribute to actors from traditional series and movies, legendary singers and unforgettable names from the world of entertainment in El Tributo; and a review of the current events that mark the agenda of the social chronicle.
They don’t mind being described as substitutes for Friday Deluxe, but they are clear that they are not Friday Deluxe, and they insist on remembering it. “Sálvame was a time, a stage of life where not everything that was done was wrong nor everything was good,” explains Archidona, who insists that now “it is a different stage, that was one time and now we are in another.” “. And in this new stage she has to “listen.” Santi Acosta repeats it over and over again: “The passion of the program is to listen to stories, to give a character the opportunity to expand and explain himself without judging him because we are not here to judge anyone.”
And the vetoes that were imposed on certain popular personalities in Mediaset months ago? There is no silence, but almost. The program wants everyone who has a story to tell. “We want to bring all the people who are seen in the magazines and who have not come to Mediaset lately or who have come but not to tell their story,” says Acosta. “We love her,” she says. And “it’s taking a while,” explains the program director, Julia Tapia. “It’s a challenge,” she insists. And it is not an easy challenge because information from the heart is in a phase where formats like Tómbola, like Salsa Rosa, like Sálvame no longer have a place on politically correct television. But the social chronicle, yes, and the heart, too, and Telecinco has always worked well, and they want it again. But they want it aligned with the new Telecinco, the Telecinco that only wants to entertain and amuse, without more. If there are puddles, let others get in.
That doesn’t mean that Friday! It’s going to be a program, as they say, a firecracker. In this search for people, Mediaset and Mandarina have teamed up to find great exclusives, great interviews and characters who have something to tell. And at their premiere they come with two very controlled bombs, or not: Ángel Cristo Jr, son of Bárbara Rey and Ángel Cristo, and Joana Sanz, Dani Alves’ wife, who gives her first interview on television.
After living a life away from the media spotlight and with long periods abroad, the eldest son of the trainer and the star has spoken exclusively in an extensive interview to which the team dedicated two days and more than 10 hours of recording and in the that Ángel Cristo Jr. is going to turn the story around as it has been known until now: “My mother blackmailed the King and I took the photos, many photos.”
“It’s brutal,” says Archidona, “because it’s also a very heartbreaking testimony.” “In the end it is a story that we all know, but that he had never talked about and now he tells a story that until now no one had heard.”
The prime time slot is much harder than the afternoon or morning slot and, furthermore, here the network has more money at stake.
The relationship with his parents when he was little, the bullying he suffered in childhood motivated by the fame of his parents, the relationship he currently maintains with his mother and sister and the unusual and decisive role that his mother assigned him in relation to The relationship he had with the emeritus king, something he had never talked about until now, will be some of the issues that Ángel Cristo García will refer to throughout his conversation with Santi Acosta. “The real nightmare was my mother,” and you can read that far. Just listen, no judging. Will Ángel Cristo Jr. be on set tonight? Santi Acosta looks away. Surprise!
Santi Acosta’s guru is going to have very bad days in the coming weeks. Acosta wants to remain zen, he does not want to live under the pressure of the audiences, the data, the undigit or the record. He says that he has matured after so many years and it seems that he is not lying about that either: “The prime time slot is much harder than the afternoon or morning slot and, furthermore, let’s be realistic, here the network has more money at stake. “That’s why I understand that if things don’t go well, the normal thing is that a program will be decided to withdraw. We have to make an effort to give our best and ensure that people at home see us and have a good time.” Heart guru word.
