The tribute to María Teresa Campos that TVE broadcast last week has made Jorge Javier Vázquez reflect, who has remained at home for several days due to Covid. The Mediaset presenter, without a program until the premiere of Survivors In spring, he reacted to the words of Mercedes Milá, who complained in that same space that Campos was left without a program in his last years. “I don't forgive that they took away the set at the end of his life.”
“There is a lot of talk about his last time in which he was denied a television set and even my admired Mercedes Milá exclaimed that she did not forgive them for doing something like that to her,” says the presenter on his blog. Readings. “Sometimes I think that those of us who work in television are asked to behave exceptionally when The end of Teresa Campos is something that happens to thousands of professionals“, think.
“Companies say 'No' because they have every right in the world to choose. Whether it seems fair or not is another thing, but who said life was fair,” he says. “What is not the heritage of communication companies is deciding what the public keeps and what it does not keep. And therein lies the true triumph of professionals like Maria Teresa Campos: go down in history, in collective memory, for a way of doing and, fundamentally, of being“recalls Vázquez.
Jorge Javier remembers that a good part of Campos' triumph occurred in the second part of his professional career. “Teresa was on a television set when most of her generation colleagues were already at home enjoying or facing retirement. She wanted to continue but couldn't. It doesn't matter. It is not the most important thing in her career. The essential thing is her legacy. The deep love and respect for her work. Her tireless desire to fight. That way of making television that you either have or you don't have. She, undoubtedly, had it,” she says. “Hence, when we refer to her, it seems more fair to me to talk about her very long period of splendor – she signed for Telecinco at fifty-something and had already succeeded at RTVE – instead of gloating over her last, very human years. Therefore TRUE: If we talk about its last period, let it serve us to learn and not to criticize it.. All of us, at some point in our lives, will have to face emptiness. Let's see how the play turns out then.”
Jorge Javier's reflection comes from a previous thought that has to do with the ephemeral nature of success in the world of television. “There is something about our profession that is not pretty: When a program stops airing, it does so, in most cases, because people do not watch it.. It may have been successful once. That he knew better times. But almost always, little by little, the harsh reality sets in: boredom, melancholy and, in the worst case, routine appear. The viewer thus becomes the witness of a reality as natural as it is painful: the end. Missing. Death”, he reflects on something that could well be related to the end of Save mewhich was canceled last June 2023.
“It is very difficult to give up a success. And even more so when you have been in this profession for many years and you know how difficult it is to achieve one. It would be nice to say “goodbye” when a program is at the top. But who then faces the uncertainty “Fear. Or worse: the mortgage,” says the presenter. “Who cuts off a romantic relationship in full swing, when he is still in love, because he knows that sooner or later that feeling will disappear?”, Asks the presenter in the aforementioned publication.