From the 'chanelazo' in Eurovision to advertising on Netflix: the great television milestones of 2022

Each person in Spain has spent in 2022 more than three hours a day on average in front of the television.

It will be more than 1,100 hours by the end of the year.

For this reason, reviewing a year of television is reviewing a very important part of our lives.

It only took until the end of January to find the first big television event of 2022 that managed to jump beyond the small screen.

With the Benidorm Fest, TVE showed that it was still capable of creating an event that would bring together the masses and dominate the social conversation.

The Eurovision representative was chosen in a festival divided into two semifinals and a final, which was followed by almost three million viewers live and generated a stir that reached Congress.

The result is already history: Chanel won thanks, above all, to the vote of the professional jury, beating Rigoberta Bandini and Tanxugueiras, favorites of the public.

The clamor of an alleged tongo spread through the networks and even the board of directors of the public corporation evaluated whether the lyrics of the song,

, complied with the principles of equality.

In any case, the

was a reality and Chanel Terrero seemed little less than the villain of Spain.

But, like the stories that engage in fiction, this one also includes a twist, although for that we will have to wait until May.

00:45

A fragment of Chanel's performance in the first semifinal of the Benidorm Fest

Chanel, during her performance at the Benidorm Fest.

Entrevías

premiered in February

and, despite playing in difficult terrain (Spanish series suffer a lot on free-to-air television and Telecinco, the channel that broadcasts it, is not going through its best moment), it achieved an average of over 1.7 in its first season. millions of viewers with a neighborhood

with Jose Coronado and Luis Zahera leading the cast.

Open-air Spanish fiction has had other successes this year, such as

and

, on Antena 3, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the place for Spanish series is on pay platforms and channels, where titles such as

or

they gave a lot to talk about.

Another small miracle is the one whose main character is

, which celebrated its 25th anniversary on the air in February.

The contest, already the history of Spanish television, maintains shares close to 8% in a channel that does not reach 3% on average.

More information

Pablo Motos, Paolo Vasile or the women of 'Intimacy': the television characters of 2022

Before the first quarter closed, two television earthquakes shook one of Telecinco's bastions:

.

Mediaset fired Paz Padilla arguing that she left the program early on January 20.

In June, the communication group and the presenter agreed to resume the contract "on exactly the same terms."

Padilla continues without a program on the channel.

In March,

was back in the spotlight due to a flurry of changes that included new directors and sections and the departure of Carlota Corredera.

Even a police operation splashed several names in the program.

In addition, the audience data was no longer what it was before, with some proposals from Antena 3 prevailing.

End 2022 and

still there.

With a final installment issued on the Mitele Plus payment platform, but it survives.

Movements on the platforms

The waters are also troubled on the platforms.

In the first two quarters of the year, Netflix lost subscribers, a historic fact that led the company to implement emergency measures.

By November, the platform, which had made a hallmark of its lack of advertising, had already launched a new, cheaper plan in 12 countries, which includes ads during viewing.

Disney+ will use the same strategy in 2023 to try to attract new customers and have higher revenues, showing that the

war had entered a new stage.

This year, in addition, Warner announced that Discovery + and HBO Max will merge into a single service, the CNN + news platform disappeared after only one month of life and there have been layoffs at various companies in the

while series and movies disappeared from services such as HBO Max to facilitate their possible sale to third parties.

All in order to try, finally, to be profitable.

Netflix launched its version with ads in 2022.

May has an essential television date every year with Eurovision.

Chanel arrived at the festival after having traveled the hero's journey: with a lot of work behind her, she had gradually won over the most skeptical and Spain, finally, went with everything to the contest.

A spectacular staging, impressive choreography and outstanding execution led the Spanish representative to a great third place that she knew was a moral victory.

The real one went to Ukraine, boosted by unprecedented public support.

The Eurodrama this time was served by six countries whose suspicious votes of the professional jury were recalculated in the final.

Two documentary series looked at the Spanish Royal House this year,

(Atresplayer Premium) and

(HBO Max), while fiction still does not dare to get into flour.

Yes, Imanol Arias got into some puddles when in an interview on local television he charged against TVE for the treatment given to

.

The producer of the series was unmarked and the actor had to apologize.

Months later, the fate of the fiction that tells the story of the Alcántara, and of recent Spain, remains up in the air amid rumors of an imminent end.

Surprise signings

Summer was the time for fiction, with the return of

, the end of

and the successful full broadcast of

on La 2. But another bomb came just before television went into summer mode : Sonsoles Ónega, one of the most representative faces of Mediaset, signed for Atresmedia, the competition.

She has not been the only presenter who has changed homes this year: Ion Aramendi and Diego Losada left La 1 to go to Mediaset.

But Ónega's movement was much more notorious and caused a small television earthquake in the corridors of the Telecinco group.

Sonsoles Ónega, in his first program after his transfer to Antena 3.

The announcement that Ana Blanco would not present the news on La 1 knew at the end of an era.

The news came at the end of an August in which the main TVE channel repeated its audience record low and Telecinco fell to its lowest monthly record.

That has been the cross of the audience results on Spanish free-to-air television.

The face has been taken by Antena 3, which for the first time will complete a year as leader after having managed to turn the tables.

The last months of the year have been no less turbulent.

The resignation of José Manuel Pérez Tornero after losing the support of PSOE and Unidas Podemos on the Board of Directors and the subsequent appointment of Elena Sánchez Caballero as the new interim president of the corporation, was followed by the news that Paolo Vasile would leave his position as CEO of Mediaset España at the end of the year, a departure that tastes like the end of an era on Spanish television.

Autumn began agitated in reality, while fiction presented the great battle of epic fantasy with the parallel broadcast of

, prequel to

, and

, two blockbusters that met on friendly terms.

Controversies in prime audience

In the last months of the year, the Spanish prime time slot still had some great moments, from the soap opera Tamara Falcó-Íñigo Onieva commented by the protagonist herself in

to the debut of Joaquín Sánchez, a Betis player, as a successful presenter , the enormous commotion generated by a statement by Patricia Conde against

or the tirade of Pablo Motos against a campaign of the Ministry of Equality in which he felt alluded to.

Meanwhile, in the mornings, Ana Rosa Quintana had returned to her program, from which she had been absent for almost a year due to breast cancer.

Ana Rosa Quintana and Paolo Vasile, at the presenter's return on October 10. Europa Press Entertainment (Europa Press via Getty Images)

But if something continues to attract Spanish viewers to lifelong television, it is football.

74.7% of the Spanish population connected for at least one minute with a World Cup game in Qatar.

The matches broadcast by La 1 achieved an average of 5,082,000 viewers (37.7% audience share), according to a report by the consulting firm Barlovento Comunicación based on data from the Kantar auditor.

The matches of the Spanish team gathered an average of 10,237,000 viewers (62.8% share).

More than 13 million viewers watched, adding La 1 and World Goal, how Spain was defeated by Morocco on penalties in the round of 16 of the competition.

In the farewell chapter, the death of Jesús Quintero invited us to remember his work as an innovator of the interview genre, that of José Luis Balbín recalled the iconic gatherings of

and the EGB generation was left orphaned with the death of Claudio Biern Boyd, creator of drawings such as David the gnome, Willy Fog and D'Artacán.

The journalist Àngel Casas, the actors Tony Sirico and Robert Morse and the actresses Rosa Mariscal, Silvia Gambino and Isabel Torres also left us this year.

When it seemed that 2022 could not have any more script twists on television, there was still the final surprise: Anne Igartiburu will not present the chimes of La 1 after 17 years.

She will do Ana Obregón and Los Morancos.

Who will repeat, already converted into another tradition of these dates, will be Cristina Pedroche and her dress, the great enigma of Spanish New Year's Eve.

Because, in such a changing television, there are still things that keep us glued to the screen.

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