Borja Prado, a year and a half of disagreements at Mediaset: Vasile, Salem and the great dispute over Jorge Javier

Borja Prado will leave Mediaset before the end of 2023, as we announced this Monday from elEconomista. He thus ends a year and a half as president of the audiovisual group that owns Telecinco and Cuatro. A time that has been marked by the difficult coexistence of the manager with Paolo Vasile and Alessandro Salem, the two CEOs with whom he has coincided.

Borja Prado (Madrid, 1956) arrived at Mediaset in April 2022. The man who was president of Endesa between 2008 and 2019 became the man chosen by Silvio Berlusconi to replace Alejandro Echevarría after 26 years in the presidency, although in In the case of Prado, he did so with executive powers.

He lived with Paolo Vasile for eight months, the most complicated for the Italian boss, because his situation was weaker than ever in the company with an increasingly deep audience crisis and without him at that time – nor now – showing any signs of recovery. improvement. The way of understanding television and seeing the business was different for them. While Vasile opted for the usual programs and maintained a firm commitment to the controversial Save me As a pillar of the network, Prado arrived with the goal of eliminating that space and cleaning up the contents of La Fábrica de la Tele, author, among other spaces, of the Rocío Carrasco documentary that had contributed to polarizing the audience. Curiously, Prado's departure now coincides with the definitive breakup of Mediaset and La Fábrica, which has been left without the three programs that she produces on the network.

The departure of Paolo Vasile was resolved with the appointment of Alessandro Salem as the new CEO of Mediaset. Again another bicephaly that has become a real war during this year in which, in addition, Silvio Berlusconi, the owner of Mediaset who was the one who chose Prado to 'monitor' the business in Spain, has died. Initially, the company distributed power between it and Salem, in such a way that Prado was left with executive powers in matters of External and Institutional Relations, Legal and Regulatory Affairs, Internal Audit, Regulatory Compliance and Social Responsibility. Likewise, Mediaset granted him “support and collaboration tasks for the editorial line of the news programs.”

This was the most conflictive point during the first months of 2023, it even led to Salem claiming in the media that he was in charge. In fact, in the middle of the year Mediaset introduced changes to its organizational chart and removed Prado's power over the news and editorial line, so that he was left alone with institutional functions. The rest of the weight of the organization chart has since fallen on Alessandro Salem: Management and Operations, General Corporate Management, Communication and External Relations, Publiespaña, Contents, News and Telecinco News.

Prado was left without powers in News, although His idea had been to promote a chain aligned with the center right in view of the possible victory of the PP in the last elections of the 23rd. In this sense, Prado He intended to take Atresmedia away from Vicente Valléshis main star on Antena 3 Noticias and scourge of Pedro Sánchez, but the journalist rejected the offer.

The change to Mediaset news came months later, but not through Vallés, but through Paco Moreno. Alessandro Salem chose, as Informalia announced, the director of TV Canaria to launch more moderate news programs that will finally have Carlos Franganillo as the main presenter, whose profile is also more discreet than Vallés'.

War between Borja Prado and Alessandro Salem

One of the main points of friction between Prado and Salem was the figure of Jorge Javier Vázquez. Although they both agreed that Save me should disappear – that's what happened in June – Borja Prado wanted the presenter to also leave the network. Last spring, Mediaset's intention to terminate the contract with Jorge Javier Vázquez by decision of the president was published, but days later Salem said the complete opposite in an interview in The country and gave his support to the presenter. In fact, the Italian expressed his intention to continue counting on the Catalan, as happened after the summer, when Jorge Javier took charge of the failed Chinese stories, eliminated from the schedule two weeks after its premiere due to its disastrous ratings. Jorge Javier is still at Mediaset and is expected to present Survivors.

In recent months, Mediaset has carried out a grid redesign process to try to get out of the audience crisis in which it has been mired for two years. The most radical decision, as we have said, was the withdrawal of Save me and all programs derived from that format. The jump to the afternoons of Ana Rosa Quintana, the return of GH VIP or the premiere of the controversial Friday These have been other news from Mediaset. Precisely, this program premiered two weeks ago with an interview with Ángel Cristo Jr. in which he attacked his mother and talked about his relationship with King Juan Carlos. The star, by the way, responded from Antena 3 pointing to the president of Mediaset, son of Manuel Prado de Colón y Carvajal, who was private administrator of Juan Carlos I.

In this turbulent period of Prado at Mediaset, the president has also had to experience surreal moments within the very network he presides over, such as the day Everything is a lie, from Cuatro, broadcast some images of the guests at Aznar's birthday. Prado appeared among them and, without identifying him, the reporter mocked his appearance: “Someone tell the gentleman that this is not a funeral.”