Do we still watch Roman movies during Easter?

BarcelonaPalms, Operation Exit, the monkey... and Roman movies. Among the Holy Week traditions, there is one very characteristic one: television programs biblical stories or sword and sandal movies, also known as peplums. Now, are audiences still hooked on these super-long productions, which are therefore ideal for filling a good chunk of the programming schedule during their professionals' vacation time?

The short answer is that they're in crisis but still have their niche. Last year, for example, one of the classics of the genre, Ben Hur, achieved an average of 1,075,000 viewers when it was broadcast on La 1 Jueves Santo, at four in the afternoon, for a share of 11.3%. These are more than acceptable figures and, in fact, it was the second film with the most share Of the twenty films broadcast during that holiday period on the channel, regardless of their subject matter. And this William Wyler epic has been broadcast 157 times (since the audience meter system was implemented in 1992). In total, almost twenty million Spaniards (and 2.8 million Catalans) have seen some part of the film throughout its run on the small screen.

The public, on the other hand, was less lucky with Quo vadis (693,000 viewers and 7.4% share) or with King of kings, which remained at 354,000 followers and 8.7% did not program any films that week, but they were not biblical or Roman themed. Ben Hur and its 151,000 viewers gave it a decent—but unenthusiastic—9.3% share. It returned the following year, and the number dropped even further: 149,000 viewers and a 7.2% share. And those days also offered Quo vadis, which stuck at a low 6% and only 136,000 viewers.

Then followed a two-year hiatus from Romance films on TV3, and in 2022 he tried again with Ben Hur, but then with the modern version of 2016, which worked a little better in terms of share (10.2%), although the audience was modest: 126,000 viewers on average. It was the last attempt to maintain this genre, and since then, there have been some films with a religious theme, but none of the classics that were popular in previous decades have been scheduled. And this year, no Biblical films are planned.

The fragmentation of supply has changed the dynamics of consumption. On April 13, 1992, TV3 achieved prime time a meteoric 27.6% share and 620,000 average viewers with King of kingsThe film didn't return to the Catalan channel's Easter program until 2003, and then, in the mid-afternoon, it still achieved a good figure: 20.7% (and 275,000 viewers, a figure understandably lower because fewer people are in front of the screen during that time slot). The film returned in 2014, also during the afternoon slot—or the "scholarship hour"—when all the DTT thematic channels had already been deployed and around forty free-to-air channels were available. Its result was much more modest then: 10.2% and 178,000 viewers.

A similar trend can be observed with Ben Hur, the Roman film that has been shown the most times on TV3, with a total of eleven. It reached its peak audience in 2000, with 376,000 viewers and a 26.7% share. share, while none of the three times it's been offered since 2013 has even reached 10%.

In fact, small, specialized television channels have become the refuge for these classic films. The Ten Commandments, for example, has been broadcast a total of 135 times, but 53 correspond to the screenings made by Paramount Network – the DTT channel owned by the Hollywood studio that distributes this classic – in the six years between 2012 and 2017. When Telecinco broadcast it in 1994, it achieved almost five million viewers in Spain and a 38.4% share. In fact, more than 15 million people connected at some point during the night with this story about Moses and the tablets of the law. Paramount Network's broadcasts, however, had much more modest results. That said, while the channel hovered around 2%, its screening ofThe Ten Commandments During Holy Week in 2015, it climbed to 5%, which suggests that there is indeed an extra audience when programming on the days of this holiday.

Streaming services have finally put this tradition of peplums and Bible stories in jeopardy, as some titles have been discontinued in recent years because they are part of on-demand service catalogs. This makes it much more difficult today to ensure that almost an entire country has seen a specific title. Barabbas It has been seen 130 times, on one channel or another, which means that up to 5.7 million different viewers have connected at some point with this Richard Fleischer film. The second title, in cumulative audience, is Marcelino, bread and wine, which has 4.8 million Catalan viewers. The bronze goes to The Ten Commandments (3.6 million), followed by Ben Hur (2.8 million) and Jesus of Nazareth (2.4 million). If we look only at the films offered by TV3, Ben Hur It is the one that has been broadcast the most times (11 times, with 1,774,000 accumulated viewers), although the most profitable has been Barabbas, because seven screenings were enough to garner 1,939,000 followers.

Of course, the bulk of those million-dollar audiences were achieved during the golden age of linear television. While Jesus managed to multiply the fish and the loaves, he hasn't yet found the formula to multiply viewers in the age of platforms.