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Since The revolt by David Broncano will land on La 1 on September 9, the audience revolution that it has brought about in its time slot has been analyzed in detail. In particular, the focus has been placed on the confrontation between The revolt y The anthilltwo of the fittest formats on all Spanish television at the moment. The third week of clash between the two has ended in a technical tie: The revolt has averaged 2,096,000 viewers compared to 2,061,000 for The anthill In screen share, they have achieved exactly the same figure, 15.975%.

These figures, and those from previous weeks, show experts that it no longer makes sense to consider the situation as a continuous battle. On the one hand, they start and end at different times, so the comparison becomes complicated. On the other hand, they are two great formats with which linear television, the traditional one, has vindicated itself, proving that it is not dead. Everyone wins: viewers The revolt because they have found an alternative to what there was, and the followers of The anthill because the program is making an effort to bring in even more powerful guests. Time will tell in what position each one will be and how they will evolve. For now, the team The revolt has already committed to the RTVE Hearing Ombudsman to eliminate jokes and puns related to drugs and to improve the female presence on the broadcast.

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Next, we analyze five keys to the revolution that the emergence of The revolt in the free-to-air television ecosystem. To do this, we have the help of the consulting firm Barlovento Comunicación to analyze, with data from the auditor Kantar Media, what happened on television in the first weeks of the La 1 program being broadcast.

How much has it revitalized The revolt he access prime time from La 1?

One of the things he has achieved The revolt is that we talk a lot about access prime time, the access slot to prime time. That is, the hour/hour and a half that goes between the nightly news and the broadcast of the main program of the night on each channel. In the eight broadcasts of The revolt In its first two weeks, it averaged a 17.8% audience share, with an average of 2,286,000 viewers. If we compare it with the data that La 1 did a year ago on these same dates (from Monday, September 11 to Thursday, September 21, to take the same days of the week) and in the same time slot (from 9:41 p.m. to 10:52 p.m.), La 1 averaged a share of 10.7% and 1,380,000 viewers. Therefore, to the question of whether La 1 has come out on top, the answer is clear: of course.

The writer Juan José Millás (left) and the paleoanthropologist Juan Luis Arsuaga (center), guests of the third installment of ‘The Revolt’.RTVE

Have new viewers come to television in that time slot?

Looking at these data, it can be thought that The revolt has made the audience for television in general, as a means of communication, grow. But that is not the case, or not at all. In those two weeks, during the hour and 10 minutes of The revoltthe average audience for all linear television (adding all channels) was 12,860,000 viewers, and the unique daily viewers in that slot were 18,082,000 on average (total number of viewers who at some point put a channel on that time). The data from a year ago is practically identical: the average audience for all linear television in the slot it currently occupies The revolt In 2023 it was 12,837,000 viewers, with an average of daily unique viewers in that time of 18,137,000. That is to say, it is not true that traditional television has gained viewers with the arrival of Broncano on La 1 compared to the situation a year ago. But be careful, there is an important change:

Has Broncano attracted young viewers to linear television?

If we break down the data from the previous question, we see that, although the total number of linear television viewers in the The revolt is almost identical in 2024 and in 2023, its distribution in age groups is not. In 2024, of the 12,860,000 total spectators, 3,285,000 are under 45 years of age and 9,575,000 are over 45 years of age. However, in 2023, of the 12,837,000 average total television viewers in that segment, 2,943,000 were under 45 years of age and 9,894,000 were older. That is to say, it is noticeable that the number of young people watching television in that area has grown (they may have come from social networks, platforms, YouTube… even out of nowhere), and there are also almost 300,000 viewers. over 45 years old who have stopped watching television at that time (heading to platforms, networks, YouTube, or perhaps even prefer to have dinner now with the TV off).

Elisabet Casanovas and Irene Escolar, in ‘The Revolt’.RTVE

Has the arrival of The revolt a The anthill?

The data from the first weeks have shown that Broncano is not going to put an end to Motos, at least in the short and medium term, far from it. Antena 3 has insisted that The anthill He has had his best start to the season in history. The comparison of the data from this year and last corroborates this: in the weeks from September 9 to 19, 2024, Pablo Motos’ program averaged 18.7% share and 2,370,000 viewers, with a total of 5,288 ,000 unique viewers on average. In the same weeks of 2023, between September 11 and 21, it had an average share of 17.2% and 2,204,000 followers, with a total of 5,121,000 unique viewers on average. That is, it has grown in unique viewers, average viewers and quota. It has been able to continue stealing part of the pie from the rest of the channels, even with the presence of another strong competitor. You could say that The revoltin some mysterious way, has made The anthill.

Is he access the real one prime time?

With all this data, the perception is that during the hours of The revolt y The anthill This is when most viewers are watching all day television. Is that intuition true? To do this, we look at the average audience data for the sum of all television channels divided into half hours between 8:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m., as offered by Barlovento Comunicación. Thus it can be seen that the time slot from 10:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. is the one that accumulates the most viewers in total: 13,084,000 on average in the weeks we are talking about. When we jump to 11:00 p.m., the figure drops very markedly to 10,526,000. When seeing this data, a question arises: why do we continue to call “prime time” the time slot that follows these programs (starting at 11:00 p.m.), if in reality the maximum audience is concentrated when they are broadcast. The revolt y The anthill? This could be the big change that has caused The revolt: the death of prime time just as we understood it.

Television’s sense of smell is a deceptive one. It can lead to great failures. In recent years there have been various attempts to emulate the success of The AnthillPersonally, I have always believed that it is impossible to imitate Pablo Motos without being Pablo Motos. Competing with the same is a mistake. Authenticity and originality are usually key in television. But before launching a programme it is essential to study which audiences do not find what they are looking for in the current free-to-air television offering. And in these decisions, data helps more than instinct.

For years, traditional television channels have resigned themselves to the decline in television viewing among all age groups of people under 44 years of age. At the end of 2023, television viewing among children aged 4 to 12 or young people aged 13 to 24 barely exceeded 60 minutes a day. For their part, young adults aged 25 to 44 spend just over an hour and a half a day watching “traditional” television.

These data have led us to believe that traditional television is a refuge for adult audiences, those aged 55 and over, and that the success of a programme is only guaranteed if it captivates said audience.

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The existence of online content is not the only reason why young people are moving away from traditional television. Free-to-air television has not been able to adapt to the evolution of their entertainment preferences. These tastes change rapidly. However, we broadcast formats that are more than 15 or 20 years old and are supported by adult consumption.

When at RTVE we considered the production of a new program access prime time [el contenido nocturno que sirve de antesala y enganche para la oferta estrella de cada cadena] For La 1 we did it trying to combine the two previous factors: original content for audiences that couldn’t find that product on linear television. And that product already existed. It was called The Resistance (hoy, The revolt) and was broadcast on pay television with modest audience figures. But The Resistance had a community of millions of followers who followed the program through clips on social media or YouTube, exponentially multiplying their impact. Meanwhile, on free-to-air television we maintained the ability to reach millions of people simultaneously, to generate a community that shares live.

That leap was a risky bet. At that time, many analysts were saying that young people would not come to La 1 to see Broncano. But the data told us otherwise and a decision had to be made.

A week after its release, The Revolt David Broncano’s show is a social and television phenomenon whose value goes beyond the walls of RTVE and benefits the audiovisual sector. A commitment that is getting audiences who had stopped watching it or had hardly ever watched it to return to television. This fact has allowed The Anthillwhich is broadcast at a similar time, continues to collect great data. In the time slot that both programs coincide, The Anthill has reached an average of 19.6% this week. The Revolt has risen to 18.8%.

The data shows that TVE’s offer is an alternative bet. While the Motos programme leads among children aged 4 to 12 and over 64 years, Broncano prevails among audiences aged 13 to 64 years and, especially, in the 13 to 44 age segment. Although RTVE does not broadcast advertising, the fact that it is a significant target or commercial value that it reached The Revolt last Wednesday with 31.6%.

The launch of Broncano’s programme on public television has led to a 38% increase in traditional television viewing in its time slot compared to the previous week for audiences between 13 and 44 years of age, according to data from the consultancy firm DOS30. If the trend continues, we are witnessing a clear generational change for public television. TVE is thus assuming a leading role with content where good humour is the vehicle for transmitting the values ​​necessary in our society.