The problem of Prisa with talk shows

Now that the SER talk shows are being discussed following Àngels Barceló's departure, it is appropriate to do a bit of archaeology and explain that the Prisa business group, in fact, banned them for a great many years. This is explained, with his usual wit and rigor, by journalist Antonio Villarreal, an atypical character who has just published the book Tertulianos, un viaje a la industria de la opinión en España. This book explains the history of this typically Spanish genre, which was not born, as is often believed, with La clave, which was more philosophical and rambling, but with the fleeting program La trastienda, on SER, in which current events were chewed over with that mix of biased information, opinion, and verbal acidity. I say fleeting because on June 1, 1984, one of the panelists, José Luis Gutiérrez, said that Alfonso Guerra's secretary had a lover in Rome who enjoyed a series of special privileges. But it turns out that the young woman was not close to the secretary, as was later known, but to the Spanish vice president, and had even had a daughter with him outside of marriage. Someone airing – even if it was by placing it on the shoulders of the poor secretary – that scandal over the airwaves pushed him to demand Gutiérrez's head on a silver platter, which was served to him. The program continued for a while, but diluted until it was easy to get rid of it.

From then on, talk shows disappeared for nearly a decade and only returned timidly when Gemma Nierga and Xavier Sardà experimented by moving away from politics, with conversations with neurodivergent people or children. Villarreal records editorials from El País furious against radio talk shows, in those times when they served as a battering ram against a decomposing PSOE. Apartments for mistresses, pressure regarding talk shows, political tension... Any resemblance to current events is not pure coincidence.