In season 4 of ‘The Simpsons’, ‘Krusty Gets Canceled’ Isn’t Just a Master Look into the Dark World of Marketing, but also an analysis of how anything, given enough fuss, can be sold. In the case of Springfield it was “Gabbo! Gabbo! Gabbo!” Y in real life it has been “Hello Tweeteeeeer!”.
Mapi is the Gabbo of the summerwhich unleashed madness on the social network for a week and, once the virality has almost completely disappeared, survives in a program in which, although it is still early to measure the evolution, if it continues with these audiences ‘Mapi ‘ will pass without penalty or glory, in a no man’s land not without virtue in these times.
The grandfather and child program
‘Mapi’ was born with a family vocation: adults will turn on the television to see celebrities, children to see Mapi and the whole family will answer this stubborn girl’s witty questions. Good idea for 1997, but not for 2022. The audiovisual world is increasingly fragmented and each member of the family has their own screen and their own interests, whether it be Twitch, Netflix or YouTube: it is rare that the natural choice is La 1.
Trying to make a daily 40-minute children’s program at 9:50 p.m. is little short of television suicide. At summer dinners, what matters least is what is in the background, and beyond four tweeters looking for the best memeI don’t think there are so many people paying attention to the very long questions and explanations of the program, which is urgently needed something like a lightning round to wake up the audience and the contestants a bit.
TVE, however public a service it may be, it does not escape from the general crisis suffered by linear television. If there are fewer people to share the cake, a share ends up saying nothing: if in the year 2000 a 10% share could be equivalent to a million and a half people, today, with luck, it will reach two thirds of that. With the general disinterest in television and the increase in supply, it is time to consider whether ‘Mapi’ makes sense.
The moment of truth
A stat: the famous video of “Hello Twitteeeer!” has been viewed more times than all three ‘Mapi’ shows so far combined. To be more exact, the contest accumulates 2,321,000 views and the video already exceeds 2,600,000. It is not a symbol of anything, just a symptom of our times. Reality is much more complex: Yes, the program would have been a failure years ago and on any other channel, but a success on the battered TVE.
Before ‘Mapi’, the time slot in question was occupied by ‘Enred@d@s’, a program that seemed to have been born at the end of the 90s at the time of ‘Bit by bit’. In its latest broadcasts, it achieved an average share of around 7%, some 750,000 people, figures much higher than those it used to be around (5-6%). ‘Mapi’ has surpassed that sharebut neither can it be said that it has managed to remove the smell of mothballs from TVE.
In his first show, ‘Mapi’ hooked 865,000 people, 8.2% of the share, going down with respect to the informative one but improving to ‘The night of the hunters’. Bearing in mind that ‘El hormiguero’ was the great success of that slot with 10.6%, you couldn’t ask for much more. But, and throughout the week, what?
the dead calm
The first ‘Mapi’ program brought together outdated tweeters, the curious and families (in fact it was a complete success among the younger population), but already in his second broadcast he lost a point, dropping to 7.3% and 734,000 viewers. It is still above the TVE average, yes, but the question is… Until when? Does it have a future or as soon as the viral phenomenon is completely over, is it condemned to be the next program canceled by the public entity?
Because of football (which had 9%, don’t think it was incredible either), Wednesday was the last program of the week, which slightly improved the data from the previous day: 7.5% and 722,000 viewers. The bleeding of viewers continues but if the share is maintained, you should not have any problems. It is also true that he rose in ‘Journey to the center of television’which debuted in its new season with more than a million viewers, something more than satisfactory for TVE in recent years.
To get an idea: in terms of viewers, ‘Mapi’ goes toe-to-toe with ‘Idol kids’ and ‘Boom!’, so looked at like this is not a failure. The problem is that it is not a program that is likely to last beyond the summer period. It’s relaxation, family, barbecue and children running around: ‘Mapi’, like summer, is made to be seen without a shirt and in scorching heat before returning to harsh reality. With or without viral phenomenon.