The second life of 'prime time' | TV
The night of January 14 changed everything. It had been a week since Antena 3 had premiered successfully his version of The voice; but it was still to be seen that these good results could be prolonged or if, as so many other times, that had only been a premiere thing. Everything depended on the figures of that night. And in the end, they could not be better: the program managed to gather some 3,309,000 spectators, 21.8% of the Compartir. A superpower audience was born, the new great generalist phenomenon, a success that has revived the figures of its chain (which, however, remains in second place after Telecinco).
And there was something else. In the next seven days, some 324,000 people watched the same program deferred. That edition of The voice is, according to data of Kantar Media that EL PAÍS is ahead of, the most watched program in deferred of the little that we have of 2019. Since then, the talent has entered another three times in the list of the most watched in deferred of 2019.
That television is consumed when and where the viewer wants is normal in these times of Netflix and Movistar +. That this habit has reached the generalists it is appreciated watching the audiences of his series: Fariña, The Cathedral of the Sea Y Elite Corps They had a very healthy life after its premiere. But that the practice also affects the entertainment programs, designed to be seen one day, commented on the next and fall into oblivion; titles designed to be born and die in the prime time, a great historical weapon of the generalists, that is something relatively new that comes with increasing force. In 2018, no entertainment program was seen among the 20 most watched in deferred until September, when it premiered Masterchef Celebrity. The program then contributed four deliveries to the most viewed list.
It is a symptom of the new state of television entertainment in Spain. The irruption of on-demand programming is affecting even classic invoice competitions like Game of games (190,000 spectators returned to see their first program after the premiere). Entertainment has lost the ability to unite millions of people around the same event. The concept of prime time it is more blurred every year (although they do not just disappear as its critics predict, who kill it as often as others kill the novel).
"If you talk to any programmer, he will tell you what it is to fight against an unknown enemy," warns professor Ana María González Neira, who is investigating new audiences at the University of A Coruña. "The user may be consuming anything, unlike ten years ago, you knew that if he was not seeing one thing, he saw the other." José Antonio Antón, program director of Atresmedia, also observes a new world. "People continue to develop viewing habits and we have to be able to cover them."
But for González Neira, the key is not what has been lost but how that loss is replenished. "Now what is sought is loyalty," he says. While before the spectator was persecuted for his habits, now it is done by his obsessions. "The voice Y Masterchef They seek to create fans among their contestants or their judges, which is the strategy that explains the success of OT 2017. They move you to be a fan not of the program but of its members. " Even in Boom, a classic Antena 3 contest, it is sought to hook the spectator by the contestants more than the prizes: the team formed by Los Lobos has been playing every day for almost two years. Last January, the edition of Pass word in which Fran González won the rosco after 168 programs attracted four million viewers, a record for the program.
"But this works especially in the talents", González Neira continues. "The key cocktail for young people doing something that moves passions: sing or cook. Sewing[inreferenceto[enreferenciaaSewing Masters] It does not move passions. That's what draws people to YouTube, social networks and yes, to viewings in deferred.
That's why there are titles that work in deferred and others that do not; It is also explained that Atresmedia, which tends to handle this formula, have such robust figures these two months (Your face is familiar to me attracted an average of 154,000 viewers) while Telecinco, which follows a different path, leads the audience live but not delayed. The battle lines are clear. It only remains to know what victory means. "The deferred allows us to continue monetizing advertising, but the idea is that we know how to bring the viewer back to live," Antón warns. "That's what moves, the event, seeing things in community, sharing it through networks, and having something to discuss the next day at work."