"We puppeteers are like that: we have a great ability to pick up canvas as much as it touches." This was the sentence that Jorge Javier Vázquez wrote a few weeks after the departure of Paolo Vasile as CEO of Mediaset. A premonitory phrase.
Since the audiences for Sálvame stopped exceeding 16% of the screen share and stayed at 13%, fighting day after day with the competition, the rumors about its end have not stopped ringing. That day has come. As EL MUNDO has learned, Mediaset will confirm in the next few hours the final cancellation of the program after 14 years on the air and will announce that from September it will be Ana Rosa Quintana who will take over Telecinco's after-dinner talks.
The new grill represents a drastic change in the image of the chain, an objective pursued by the company since the arrival of Alessandro Salem as director, but it also opens up a few unknowns. What will become of Jorge Javier Vázquez now? What will happen to Belén Esteban and the rest of the Sálvame collaborators? What is the new role of Ana Rosa?
Let's go by parts. Save me is over but Jorge Javier Vázquez does not abandon Telecinco. Last September he renewed his contract with Mediaset until 2025 and from the company they assure that he continues to be a fundamental piece for the chain. He will continue to present Survivors and is counting on him for new entertainment formats.
The news of the cancellation does not come as a surprise either. Just a few days ago, during an interview on TVE, the Catalan presenter admitted the unknowns about his future. "I have a contract. I have two years left, until 2025. Whatever they decide, it will be fine," he assured in reference to the new address. "I work on television, television is not mine. A management team arrives and I understand what they want to do with the people who are working or with the dolls that we appear on television, whatever they want."
For Jorge Javier Vázquez, Sálvame has been more than a television program. It has been the space that made him the star presenter of the chain and of the group, sharing the throne with the queen of mornings, with Ana Rosa Quintana.
"In Telecinco there are many presenters, but there are only two stars," they say from the chain. For this reason, they justify, the gap left by Jorge Javier's program could only be filled by Ana Rosa's program. "Content like Sálvame can only be replaced by something very top".
I have a contract. I have two years left, until 2025. Whatever they decide will be fine
Thanks to Sálvame and the audiences that the program has made for more than 10 years, Jorge Javier was chosen for all formats, the pretty boy of Mediaset: he replaced the mythical Mercedes Milá at the helm of Big Brother, he became the presenter of the galas of Survivors, in the host of Saturday Deluxe, of Friday Deluxe, of all the heart specials that appeared on the chain, even in the presenter of some of the chapters of the docuseries Rocío, telling the truth to stay alive and of the program In the name of Rocío. He was everywhere and at all times.
Thanks to the treatment and meaning he wanted to give his life after the death of Sálvame collaborator Mila Ximénez and after the stroke he himself suffered, Jorge Javier Vázquez had been preparing for the end of the program for some time. Even so, in these months where the crisis of Sálvame and its audiences -despite continuing to lead many afternoons- occupied dozens of headlines in the specialized press, Jorge Javier has continued to defend the format tooth and nail.
The last time, in the celebration of the anniversary for the 14 years of the program on the air. That afternoon, during the tribute that La Fábrica de la Tele wanted to pay Mila Ximénez, Jorge Javier Vázquez was clear and forceful: "This television is a transgression, it is screwing up, making a mistake. May all of you ever turn around in your uncomfortable seats , but also, the next day, they love us and laugh with us. The rest is boredom. We can live on the rent, but either we risk and screw up, or nothing. I want to be like Mila, a living being on television ".
Despite the closure of Sálvame, let no one think that Jorge Javier Vázquez will stop being a "living being on television". The end of the program does not mean any economic or professional setback for the presenter. He will continue presenting Survivors and, surely, any reality show that reaches Telecinco. He has been the image of entertainment on Mediaset for a long time and, of course, of the heart chronicle.
The entire new grid is under construction and we hope to start in September in a very powerful way
Jorge Javier Vázquez, who received an Ondas Award for Best Presenter for his work on Sálvame -the one that Carles Francino and Àngels Barceló refused to give him-, has also been opening other professional doors. For a few months he has had his own podcast, Los burros de Fortunato; he maintains his weekly column in Lecturas magazine; He continues with his facet as a writer and has been seen on channels that until recently he couldn't even imagine being on, such as on the La 2 program La matematica del espejo.
For the end of Sálvame he had been preparing for a long time. What he surely was not prepared for is the news of his substitute in the afternoons on Telecinco: Ana Rosa Quintana.
The relationship with the journalist and presenter has been tensing in recent times, especially since the broadcast of the documentary by Rocío Carrasco. A war between producers in which he had to intervene until the direction of the group and that Jorge Javier Vázquez did not hesitate to make visible live on several occasions. On one side, La Fábrica de la Tele, responsible for Sálvame among other formats, and on the other Unicorn Content, the company of which Ana Rosa Quintana is president and the one that produces her programs.
Both are 33% owned by Mediaset, but it is Unicorn that comes out stronger from this remodeling in Telecinco. Ana Rosa Quintana will assume the evening programming starting in September, but she will not leave the political table with which until now she opened her program first thing in the morning. The rest of the space will be led from the new season by Joaquín Prat and the rest of Ana Rosa's collaborators, although the new design is yet to be defined. Also what will be the style that your magazine will have on the desktop.
"The entire new grid is under construction and we hope to start in September in a very powerful way," they explain from Mediaset.
What seems clear is that the best-known faces of Sálvame no longer enter into these plans. All of them, led by Belén Estaban, have their contracts linked to La Fábrica de la Tele. In fact, the famous collaborator renewed hers just a few months ago. Her future in the chain, like that of the rest of the names that sat every afternoon on the set of Sálvame, will depend on the new formats that the production company agrees with Mediaset. Currently you are already signing spaces like Socialité, Everything is a lie or Traveling with Chester.
"We are going to continue working with La Fábrica", they clarify from the company. "But the idea is to change the image and make television family, happy and more respectful."
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