Sonsoles Ónega, the presenter who surpasses her mentor, Ana Rosa Quintana: "I do not aspire to be queen of the afternoons or mornings"

It has been five years of great and constant changes for Sonsoles Ónega (Madrid, 45 years). It was Pedro Piqueras himself who proposed that she go from being a parliamentary correspondent for the news of Telecinco to one of the star presenters of the magazines of the chain produced by Ana Rosa Quintana. His commented signing by Antena 3 has created a domino effect not only in the grid of the Atresmedia chain, but also in Mediaset.

This season, she faces the afternoons as the "veteran", before Jordi González and his imminent La plaza in La 1 and Quintana herself with the recently released TardeAR on Telecinco. Ónega continues to reap good data, with which it consolidates the strip for Antena 3. She is so integrated into the network, that she comes to the interview from the set of the series Amar es para siempre, in which she has made a cameo. She plays the press officer of Tierno Galván, dressed as a woman of the eighties.

Question. What are the strengths of your program?

Answer. Our trump card is exclusive content, let the viewer know that what he will find here will not be elsewhere. That is why we have strengthened the investigation and events teams. And we took advantage of the audience on set. This season we dedicate one more stand to him. I like to interact with people.

This permanent political parliament, this declarative journalism with politicians spewing phrases and citizens yawning, does not interest me at all.

Q. These have been years of many changes. She appears to be the quiet woman. Has it taken its toll?

A. I like to know that I appear to be a quiet woman, because the nerve goes inside... It is true that professional changes have also been personal. One thing goes hand in hand with the other, especially in professions as absorbing as ours. I don't live to work, but I admit that I take every opportunity very seriously and I'm very obsessive.

Q. She has always referred to the difficulty of reconciling being a working woman.

A. I don't want to call it a personal bill... although my children still do. I hope that one day they won't throw it in my face. Both in Congress and on Telecinco, with Ya es las 8, I was used to being home late. It is a fine rain with the family to explain that you are not, but that you are. For the urgent you will always be, although for an extracurricular soccer you have to help a nephew to take the child. They say that as they grow older, the children begin to recognize the work of their mothers. Writing a book about it allowed me to discover that we have all been stubborn for centuries. It is a nameless evil of women that must be carried as much as possible, because first of all we must not give up.

Q. Telecinco asked Unicorn Content to mount Ya es mediodía, her first experience as a presenter of magazines, in less than five days. How was that dizzying leap?

A. The network and the production company have that muscle, because they have a lot of experience in assembling programs. It cost me much more than them. I had never entered a set before! Only invited by the books. And once, during an electoral device, Pedro Piqueras took me to launch graphics and he never gave me way... We hardly did rehearsals for It's noon. It had nothing to do with the afternoon start of Antena 3, in which we did many pilots and explored the set a lot.

I don't want to call the reconciliation personal bill... although my children still do. I hope that one day they will not throw it in my face

Q. And how was the jump to Antena 3?

A. It was even more demanding, because it had been many years since the chain had a window to live in the evenings. It meant starting from scratch, with a team and a set to build. We have done a lot in a very short time. I have no shame in saying that I had no idea. I've learned along the way with the teams how important the technical part is. It's been a tough year.

Q. It is that I came from working on the street.

A. Of course. I said: "Ask me where to place the camera in the street to cover an investiture." I place three in Zorrilla, four in the San Jerónimo race, one in each exit of the building of deputies ... But I had no idea about the set. I still don't have. There are many things that I learn on a day-to-day basis.

Q. In Y ahora Sonsoles he deals with current affairs, heart and events. Is it still politics where you feel most comfortable?

A. I feel comfortable in all the records. Politics, as it stands, I don't think it was an area in which I felt so comfortable now. Sometimes it forces the communicator to stand on one side. Because of my training in Congress, always listening to arguments from each other, I realized that no one has the absolute truth. So I don't think a communicator is the one who treasures it either. Doing magazines I have discovered the value of citizen testimony. In people's lives there is always a teaching.

Q. So don't you think journalists should express political ideas in their magazines?

A. Everyone can do what they want. Sometimes I do pronounce myself, on matters on which we must have an opinion and express it with some vehemence. But this permanent political parliament, this declarative journalism with politicians spewing phrases and citizens yawning, does not interest me at all.

Q. What kind of social chronicle do you prefer?

A. In Antena 3 we try to make a social chronicle of characters who do things, who are examples and educate. For years they have been overshadowed by another type of social chronicle, just as respectable, but perhaps not so inspiring. I trust a lot of what my mother says and now she is really enjoying the documentary about María Jiménez. As Rubalcaba said, in Spain we bury very well. But there are other figures who are alive and TV has that obligation to put the speaker, to tell us how they have achieved it, how much they have suffered, if they enjoy success ...

Sonsoles Ónega faces two veterans such as Ana Rosa Quintana and Jordi González from the afternoons of Antena 3.Santi Burgos

Q. What TV does Sonsoles Ónega watch? Is it the same one you saw when you were a parliamentary journalist?

A. Now I watch a little more Antena 3 (laughs). I'm in tune with the rest of the country. Although I also look at the premieres of other chains. I don't have a reference string. I watch the channel a lot 24 hours because my sister Cristina works in it.

Q. In your signing for Antena 3 you were never offered to inherit the mornings in the near future?

A. It was never on the table. And it still isn't. Before there was even talk of the weekend. In addition, I like to place the neurons in the morning and it costs me an egg to get up early.

Q. How did you stay when Terelu Campos told you on her show that Maria Teresa Campos considered you to be her natural successor as queen of the mornings?

A. It is appreciated, but I do not aspire to any reign. Neither in the morning nor in the afternoon. I'm content to keep working and for my team to do too. From my father [the journalist Fernando Ónega] I learned that as soon as you are the star signing to present the evening news on Antena 3 as soon as you stay on the street. So I don't believe almost anything, other than the day to day.

Q. If your children wanted to be journalists, would you give them the same advice your father gave you, or have times changed too much?

A. I'm doing something wrong so that my children don't want to be journalists. None of them show interest in my work. They don't watch the show. Sometimes they find out about something because it comes to them on TikTok! If you wanted to dedicate yourself to it, I would give you the same advice I received: "work, work, do not be lazy that I give you with an open hand. It is a long-distance race that wears a lot, often poorly paid. Don't faint." So yes they would be similar advice.

Q. Were you more excited to win the Lara Prize as a novelist or the Mainat as a television presenter?

A. Both are very exciting, but the Lara awarded a very specific novel, which cost me a lot to write. It was a very complicated plot that I did not know if I was going to know how to build and that was set in a very specific historical period of which I knew nothing. I had to do a lot of research. The prize repositioned me in the literary world where, honestly, I had not had much fortune up to that point. He had three novels that did not cover advances of 1,000 or 3,000 euros of the little they sold.

Q. Do you find time to write?

A. Without writing I am nobody. The other day I complained fondly that in interviews I am never asked about books. This summer, when I've had a week without kids and without a job, I started writing the following.

Q. Well, let's ask for books. What is your next novel?

A. It is a historical novel, in Galicia, with a search for truth, destiny... There are many ingredients that are repeated in my novels. It is a story that recognizes the work of women for decades and decades in the Galicia of the sea.

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