(This piece is a version of one of the mailings of the weekly EL PAÍS Television newsletter, which comes out every Thursday. If you want to sign up, you can through this link).
“Him share It seems disastrous to me.” This is what Concepción Cascajosa, former interim president of RTVE and television expert, forcefully expressed herself in one of the episodes of podcasts of the ALMA screenwriters union, This has already been done. “We’re playing a big joke on ourselves in terms of audience ratings,” he added.
La 1 debuted on Wednesday 12 November Until the end of the worldsort of Beijing Express with famous light (there are no people expelled and there are more scripted situations). After 0.45 the competitors reached the finish line of the stage. But the program was linked to another episode, so much so that it ended at 2.15 in the morning, a completely unsustainable time for the normal audience, who work, study and have a life to balance. On Wednesday the 19th the program ended at 1.30am and it wasn’t short either. The same happens with MasterChefanother of the spaces that generates the most complaints regarding the schedule of each edition: the final of the tenth episode in the format celebrity It ended this Monday at 02:30 in the morning.
That same Wednesday 12 November it aired on Antena 3 1% After The anthill. The competition presented by Arturo Valls started almost at 11.30pm. and ended after 1 a.m. For months now, both The revolt AS The anthill They lengthen their duration as convenient, with days ending closer to 11 p.m. and others that last until almost 11.30 pm, so much so that the program that follows them lasts until dawn. Both La 1 and Antena 3 have found two strong programs with which to set up what Atresmedia defines as a “double offer of prime time“, first with The anthill and then with the current series or programme. They don’t use the concept of log in in prime time: yes, at the time of The revolt AND The anthill It is when the greatest number of viewers are connected to television, it is absurd that this is not considered prime time.
One of the explanations for these movements, which are leading to prime time Spanish until times that were considered until a few years ago late at nightit’s in screen sharing. Him share or share is a piece of data that indicates how the television pie is distributed at any time. Indicates the percentage of viewers who at a given moment are watching each proposal among all those proposed by traditional television. That is, if a program had an audience share of 12%, it means that 12% of the total number of people who were watching television at the time chose that program.
Together with him assessmentHim share It is one of the audience measurement units par excellence on television. The difference between the two lies in the reference they use: the ratings, or audience rating (according to the Fundéu), takes into account the total universe of consumption, i.e. all the televisions in a territory, whether on or off. Instead, the share, The share refers to the total number of viewers at a given time, taking into account only the televisions turned on. That is, the odds determine who wins in the slots competition.
“Viewer data is very important because it means knowing how many people you reach every day. (…) The share is an index of competitiveness and tells you what position your program occupies in a certain time slot. It is what helps you measure what percentage of viewers who watch television opt for your content at that moment, which is also a vitally important data when it comes to competing,” explains Santiago Gómez Amigo, director of Research, Insights and Analysis, therefore responsible for the analysis of the hearings by Atresmedia.
Why do networks give so much importance to screen share figures? On the one hand it is the reference that is presented to advertisers: if you want to advertise your product on television, you will prefer the channel that has the greatest ability to reach people. On the other hand, it is a way to mask the large decline in viewers that traditional television is suffering. The annual analyzes of the consultancy firm Barlovento Comunicación reflect the evolution of the audience in the period from 10.15 pm to midnight. at 10.30pm, the most listened to 15 minutes of traditional television. In 2013 and 2014 the average audience of those minutes (summing all channels) was 18.2 million viewers. In 2024, that figure was 12.4 million. In a decade, television has lost a third of its prime time viewers.
A tweet from @botmdia retrieved audience data for a given Thursday in March 2015. If we look at a program that is still airing today, The anthillthat day it had a share of 15.3%, a figure which today it exceeds in most cases. But it did so with more than three million viewers, when now the average is around two million: a third fewer viewers, as Barlovento data shows. This decrease is observed if we look at the average number of viewers and not if we talk about screen sharing.
🥲 It’s always impressive to see the #hearings from years ago…
They are from an ordinary Thursday in 2015. Spectacular 20.1% and 2,100,000 viewers of Sálvame despite it being an afternoon broadcast. All this is unthinkable today. pic.twitter.com/toCgoaR3v0
— BOTMEDIA (@botmdia) November 12, 2025
On the day of its premiere, Until the end of the world on La1 he was the protagonist of the evening. It was with 812,000 viewers and a share of 14.3%. Extending programs into the early hours of the morning is a tactic that all networks use (some more or less) and which allows the data to be inflated share. As the night progresses, especially after midnight, the number of viewers drops dramatically, but the share increases because the remaining viewers will watch one of the programs that came from behind and that they started watching at a more reasonable time.
What importance does RTVE, a public and advertising-free channel, give to screen sharing data? Does it influence programming decisions? This newspaper sent these questions to RTVE, as well as others relating to the duration of the The revolt AND Until the end of the worldand chose not to comment. Atresmedia responded: “More than influencing, it guides you. It gives you clues,” says Santiago Gómez Amigo about the share of screens. “We will not stop reporting as we believe it should be reported or making a series or program the way we want to make it just because it will have half a point more value.” share do it another way. It’s a short-term thing.”
Should La 1 engage in these screen share fights? They can claim that if someone can’t finish or watch a program due to its schedule or length, it will always be available on demand on RTVE Play for free. But then it will be recognized that viewers are being pushed out of traditional television.
In it podcast This has already been doneCascajosa went a little further and also addressed his criticisms to the media and the pleasure of collecting comparisons between programs and the fight for quotas as “a kind of boxing match: what if one wins the other, what if they lose by a tenth in today’s fight”. “There is too much talk focused on victory with data, on struggle, on conflict. This, in the end, means that the true role of the audiovisual sector is not understood. Perhaps there is a program that is the third and earns more because the target commercial is better. (…) For a public radio and television, data should not be central, but everyone judges you by data: in Parliament, in the press, on the radio…” “In the end we don’t talk about television, we almost talk about mathematics”, he concluded his reflection.
