TVE’s war takes Anne Igartiburu to the abyss in her horribilis season: her prime time and ‘Corazón’ are sunk

The internal war that has been waged within RTVE in recent months, with Elena Sanchez y Jose Pablo Lopez like the two visible heads that have ended up guillotined, it has had consequences on the network’s programming and, above all, on the audience, with disastrous data that has taken La 1 to the abyss of the single digit and to third place in the ranking.

A good example of the crisis that has reopened in the public chain – the second part of 2023 was better than this 2024 – is dance as you can. The program, which was one of La 1’s great assets to boost its prime time, has been a ratings disaster with records more typical of niche thematic networks than of a top-level station. The last delivery was fifth option, with a meager 5.5%.

The fiasco of dance as you can It has also been a blow for Anne Igartiburu, who with this program intended to return in style to prime time after years away from big projects. In fact, the Basque presenter has been in the doldrums for a couple of seasons and is now going through one of her most complicated moments after being cornered, also, in her Heart lifelong. Once Ana Blanco has retired from television, Anne Igartiburu is the presenter who has been on TVE the longest, uninterruptedly. It arrived in 1997 (first The Unmissableon La 2, before starting the pink chronicle) and it can be said that she is a survivor on the public channel, although now her role is off.

We must remember that there was a time when Igartiburu was everything on TVE. He successfully presented Heart and combined it with great prime time programs, like Look who is dancing. His presence at Puerta del Sol to ring the Bells was also indisputable. Everything began to change recently, when the public channel progressively removed the Basque presenter. Firstly, TVE stopped using it for the nighttime formats and was only left with the half hour of Heart which for years worked very well as the opening act for Telediario. His work in that program was limited to giving “step to video”, as he said Marilo Montero in that unforgettable hookup they had in an interview in the afternoon magazine +Peoplewhich Anne also presented, but she always wanted to return to prime time.

The second blow was received when TVE suppressed the daily strip of Heart, in September 2022, and the program was reduced to a tiny weekend version. It was then that she began to look for a life outside of TVE, first as a presenter of the Telemadrid talk show, ten momentsand, later, with appearances in other competition spaces, such as Mask Singer. Meanwhile, on Saturdays and Sundays he continued in Heart.

In 2022, Anne was removed from the Chimes and suffered another setback. The public chain chose to Ana Obregon y The Morancos to welcome 2023, a year in which she had more prominence on Antena 3 as a contestant on Your face is familiar to me than on TVE, where she continued to stay away from big projects. Once again, the public channel ruled her out for the last Chimes, thus confirming that they no longer had her for the big broadcast of the year. Ramon Garcia, Anna Mena y Jennifer Hermoso They commented on the last 12 grapes.

What’s more, we must remember that TVE did not even have her for the gala Innocent, innocent, which had been the last Christmas bastion it had maintained in recent years. This year didn’t start well for Anne Igartiburu either when the public took away what little she had left: Heart. The network has forced him to share the presentation of this program with Jordi Gonzalezso its prominence has been diluted in this space that has now been converted into the magazine D Heartwith a duration of one hour, the participation of talk shows, such as Terelu Campos o Alba Carrilloand a much higher budget that has not been reflected in the audience, which remains on the floor.

As if this were not enough, Igartiburu has had to find out that he charges less money (1,750 euros per program) than Jordi González (1,900) for doing the same job. What he had allowed him in 2024, as we have explained; is to return to prime time with BHello as you can, although the audience result is being disastrous. The program, which features contestants such as Lydia Lozano or the Master Joao, premiered with a meager 7.1% and in its second week fell to 5.1%. The latest news is that the format has lost Monday nights, where starting next week it will be broadcast Masterchef. TVE has thrown in the towel and has displaced dance as you can to Tuesday, sentencing him to death against Survivors: No Man’s Land.