David Broncano, presenter of La revuelta, the entertainment program on La 1, has spent some quite complicated last hours after this Monday's interview with the leader of Vox and candidate for the November 29 general elections, Santiago Abascal. The RTVE presenter had already acknowledged his mistakes on the street and did so again before interviewing the leader of the Broad Front, Ada Colau, this Tuesday. With her, he tried to recover the comic register that usually characterizes the program.

The Revolt broke its million-viewer record with Abascal, but the show was not a success. On the contrary. If you make an entertainment show, you must entertain; you cannot make people suffer. Terrified that it might be said he had ended up empathizing with the leader of Vox, Broncano renounced the laughter, which is the same as saying he renounced doing his show.

From time to time, in Brussels, I watch La revuelta, on RTVE Internacional. The other day Pedro Almodóvar was there and Broncano took the opportunity to announce that the following Monday Santiago Abascal, from Vox, would go on the show. I thought the interview would be interesting, and yesterday I watched it. It was interesting, very much so. It was a great lesson, not primarily in politics, but in anthropology and history. Anthropology, dictionaries say, is “the study of human beings in an integral way, encompassing both their biological and evolutionary dimension and their cultural and social diversity over time”. There, on La revuelta, there were two perfect archetypes of what has been, for time immemorial, the history of Spain. Those on top and those on the bottom. Those who have dominated and those who are dominated. Abascal represented the first archetype perfectly, “impasible el ademán”, with answers for everything without any shadow of doubt or hesitation, allowing himself the luxury of a “campechana” bonhomie, with pats on the back and some paternal and affectionate pinches. It takes a few generations to obtain this human type.

A 33.6% of viewers opted yesterday to watch the interview with Santiago Abascal on La1. These are figures that remain three tenths below the 33.9% that Pedro Sánchez achieved a few days earlier with his participation in La revuelta. Mind you, if looking at the number of viewers, the Vox leader achieved 4.8 million while the socialist remained at 4.4 million. In Catalonia, Abascal was followed by 31.9% of the audience and 589,000 viewers, while Sánchez remained at 571,000 followers and a 33.0% share.

Last night's interview on TVE's La Revuelta went much better for Abascal than for Broncano. The Vox leader listened, kept quiet, did not interrupt, and responded when it was his turn. And he responded in a reasonably responsible tone. Broncano, on the other hand, made very long interventions with clarifications that no one was asking for and that sounded like excuses, and he managed neither to make an entertaining show (we are talking about an entertainment program) nor to conduct a poignant interview. To put it in sporting terms, Abascal won. And he will gain some votes, thanks to this interview, because many people watched it: it was the most-watched broadcast in the history of the program in terms of viewers, nearly five million people, 428,000 more viewers than the one with Pedro Sánchez.

After the interview that David Broncano conducted with Santiago Abascal on La revuelta on La 1, the presenter might as well quit. Giving in to the leader of Vox is unworthy of public television. Above all, for accepting that Vox vetoed the usual audience to accommodate a claque selected by the party. Spectators who, even before entering the theater, and from the stalls, shouted “¡Presidente! ¡Presidente!” and applauded every one of the guest’s responses.

In October 2019, during a conversation with Gerard Piqué on La resistencia, the footballer asked David Broncano: "Would you bring Abascal on your show?" "No, I wouldn't," the presenter replied, following the controversy over Pablo Motos' interview with Abascal on El hormiguero a few days earlier. Seven years later, the Vox candidate for the general election appeared this Monday on La revuelta. And he has become the star of the most-watched interview in the show's history, with an average audience of 4,815,000 viewers and a 33.6% audience share.

There is no doubt that for politicians on the campaign trail, going on friendly programs (which represent what going to markets used to be) helps them. It shows us a friendly face. “Look, this one also has teenage children like me, he also likes football like me...” Going to programs like La revuelta works well for them to reach people who watch them and do not watch conventional television, nor read newspapers. These people may be abstentionists and, upon hearing Rufián talk about “comer culo” or Montero say that (forgive me, as I am quoting from memory, and I am not translating due to the sonority of the original Spanish version: "it is hard to find a guy who eats your pussy well"), (forgive me, as I am quoting from memory, and I am not translating due to the sonority of the original Spanish version), they think that the electoral platform they have does not matter, but that they are “buddies”.

Politicians can go on television to talk about sex, as it must bring them votes. Irene Montero –Mònica Planas explains it to us– said on a program where she was sharing an interview with Gabriel Rufián: “It is increasingly difficult to find a guy who goes down on you well”.

On Tuesday night, the collaborative left-wing duo formed by Gabriel Rufián and Irene Montero visited La revuelta. The La 1 program, in which Broncano harasses his guests by asking about their sexual relations over the last month, encountered two candidates who went beyond his usual calculations and turned sex into the background noise that ran through a good part of the interview.

After 9 years of exile, deputy Lluís Puig was able to return yesterday to sit in his seat at the Parliament. His emotion contrasted with the coldness with which he was received by the socialist group, at the head of which President Illa was not present, perhaps because it is one thing to have converted to the faith of the amnesty when his friend Pedro Sánchez has needed Junts to be invested as president and another to appear alongside someone who has not been to prison and who for nine years has been characterized as a “fugitive” (in reality, not a fugitive at all, because the exiles have always been, from the first day, at the disposal of the Belgian justice system (or German or Italian in the case of Puigdemont).

Pedro Sánchez aspires to an absolute majority and David Broncano wants to vocalize better. These are the two great desires expressed by the protagonists of La revuelta. It is difficult to say which of the two has it more complicated. Sánchez appeared with a Texan look, which is the new corduroy for left-wing politicians. Broncano sarcastically placed a Spanish flag pin on his lapel “so they can see that this is serious”. And in essence, the hour and a half interview had a more serious undertone than it appeared at first glance.

On Thursday evening, actress María Valverde was the guest on La revuelta on La 1. During the conversation, the host, David Broncano, reminded her that during the previous stage of the program on Movistar+ –La resistencia–, her most viral video was the one of her answering the program's traditional uncomfortable question about the frequency of her sexual activity. They claimed that the video had more than twenty-five million views. She lamented that those statements haunted her for a long time, making her discomfort obvious. Broncano invited her to repeat what she said that day, but she avoided talking about it, letting him be the one to recall the facts. Even so, he asked her the two classic questions they ask everyone again: the money they have in the bank and sexual activity in the last month, scoring the different acts, in which intercourse is worth more points than petting or masturbation. Valverde also warned that that assessment made no sense at all.The questions in La revuelta have an evident component of coercion of the guest in which the limits of consent become ambiguous. In case of not wanting to answer, the protagonist is forced to refuse publicly, in front of the cameras. There is always the insistence of the presenter, which prolongs the tension. The refusal, furthermore, also allows for a public interpretation regarding the reasons behind it. It brings all the guests to the epicenter of a story about sex and money that not everyone can or wants to sustain. On the other hand, intimacy is subordinated to the media interest of the program. The program is aware that the answers guarantee virality on social media. La revuelta profits from people's sex lives. The possibility of answering the questions is also associated with a false idea of liberation and disinhibition. Or rather, not wanting to answer can be interpreted as a lack of transparency or sexual repression. And this can condition the guest's will. The public reacts to the answers by issuing a judgment on whether it is okay, too little, or too much. The virality of social networks causes a loss of control over the framework in which the dialogue was consented to. The guest accepts an interview limited in time, in a specific personal and social context, usually linked to the promotion of something. Virtual circulation causes an indefinite and eternal multiplication of the conversation, and their discourse is reduced to a thirty-second video. On the other hand, establishing a points scale for different types of sexual acts, in which sexual intercourse with penetration is the star category, confirms the most simplistic and retrograde heterobasic approach typical of the program.What La revuelta does, beyond promoting viral exposure at the expense of taboos and people's sex lives, is to normalize and encourage the judgment of people's private lives. These are approaches typical of the sleaziest and most vulgar tabloid press.

In the process of The Revolt to close the season, on Wednesday evening they connected via video call with Shakira. A typically promotional interview to announce the concerts in September and October in Madrid. An absolutely bland and inconsequential conversation to be able to say that you have had the singer on the program. Shakira was in Boston, in the middle of a tour and awaiting her performance at the World Cup final. She was connecting from an elegant living room, decorated with the typical coldness and impersonality of a luxury hotel or an apartment for wealthy people. David Broncano, despite his relaxed tone, tried to appear somewhat normal, eliminating any transcendence from the moment. However, he showed the prudence that big international stars usually demand, where everything must be extremely polite and a rather reverential attitude must be suggested. The presenter followed all the protocols of praise, recognition of the singer's artistic work, and mention of the concerts, with the right amount of hyperbole. Shakira responded with polite laughter, the generosity of inviting him to her shows, and that joy of celebrities to show that, despite their fame, they remain normal, everyday people.

This Thursday, the protagonists of the program La revuelta were served humor on a silver platter. They had received the resolution from the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) regarding a complaint filed by UTECA, the Union of Open Commercial Television. The conflict has a strictly regulatory origin: RTVE cannot broadcast conventional advertising and can only incorporate advertisements in the form of sponsorships in programs of cultural or sporting content. The complaint started from the premise that La revuelta violated this legal framework. The CNMC contradicted this with a bewildering wording that justified the broadcast as cultural. “The program is presented by its director in a humorous key and has great dynamism”. And it added that Broncano appeared on stage “with great energy and liveliness”. The text of the resolution was so delirious that the presenter himself and collaborator Jorge Ponce made fun of the argumentative twists, for example when describing the content: “Capybaras were discussed, 'walking football' or Angelman syndrome and the actor Salva Reina and the Spanish rugby team were interviewed”. All in all, the regulatory body considered that, despite being an entertainment space, the format was not incompatible with the cultural dimension and, therefore, the sponsorship did not contravene the regulations.

This time Rosalía has prioritized The revolt and not The anthill. A clear statement of principles. Whether they like it or not, the two rival programs have ended up becoming symbolic options. Pablo Motos has favored such a pronounced ideological leaning to the right, and beyond, that Broncano has become, by contrast, the cool left. The revolt, an overrated program, based on the laziness and supposed sympathy of alpha males, sells an appearance of naturalness, humility and transparency to the point that the stage has ended up looking like an improvised cleaning point. The anthill It's the relentless, competitive machine, operating with the precision of an army. It represents glamour and the "nothing can be said anymore" attitude. Rosalía could choose. Her enormous power, with a capital P. patronessIt frees her from any servitude. With her, media blackmail to guarantee promotion loses all meaning. It was where she was excited, on the TV program she watches and where she sees people she likes.

Rosalía is the artist of the moment. The Catalan singer is on everyone's lips after the release of his latest album, Lux, which has garnered a great deal of media attention in recent weeks. This Monday, the one in San Esteban de Sesrovires has visited RTVE's La RevueltaThis is the first time the artist has appeared on David Broncano's show, which previously aired on Movistar Plus. But the wait was worth it: for the occasion, the show changed its format and aired almost an hour and a half of interview.

A few days ago, a secretly recorded video circulated on social media of two people dancing together, who appeared to be the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Republican Left of Catalonia) deputy in Congress, Gabriel Rufián, and actress Ester Expósito. After doubts and theories about the identity of the protagonists, the deputy has explained that, indeed, they are the two of them in the video. This was confirmed yesterday by Gabriel Rufián on The revolt in a visit that makes him the first politician to appear on the program.

On Monday night Gabriel Rufián was a guest at The Revolt, the most overrated program on La1. David Broncano justified his presence: they threw a hook on social media that the ERC deputy took too hastily. The presenter was skeptical about the visit, given that it was the first active politician to appear on the program and, on public television, they should compensate by bringing another deputy from an opposite political spectrum.

The Revoltended its first season on RTVE this Thursday with an interview with Joaquín Reyes and audience figures that consolidated its position on the television schedule. With an average share of 12.9% and 1,622,000 viewers on average across the country – in Catalonia it obtained an 8.3% share share and 128,000 viewers–, the program presented by David Broncano has been one of the great novelties of the television course, although it has not been able to surpassThe Anthill, which maintains its lead in the time slot with a 14.3% share and an average of 1,969,000 viewers.