If Spain is hooked today to programs like ‘OT’ or ‘Big Brother’ is due to a single man: Toni Cruz

Toni Cruz’s death last Friday at 78 serves us to radiograph the Current Cathodic Business Status. And above all, it is a reliable evidence that those who were architects of television as we know it are retiring or dying (that is, the one that the first years of the private ones were configured). Although for years it was not in front of the camera, its role has been key in some of the greatest successes of recent years.

Great successes. Gestmusic launched, in collaboration with public and private channels, great success programs such as’Operation Triunfo‘,’Big Brother‘ either ‘Martian chronicles‘, being a cross essential part of the design and development of these programs. Little can be added to the founding importance of the three: our primeR talent showour first reality and an unclassifiable but very influential program that reached stratospheric audiences at an impossible schedule.

The thing did not end there, and with the passage of time, Gestmusic was generating variants of these primal formats, with successes like ‘Rain of stars’, ‘Your face sounds to me’, ‘You do vouchers’, ‘Do not laugh that it is worse’ or ‘Look who dances!’ Cruz and Mainat ended up selling their part of Gestmusic to Endemol in 2017.

The Baron of Bidet. For the general public, Toni Cruz became famous since the end of the sixties and even entered the eighties with the trench, in the company of Josep Maria Mainat and Miquel àngel Pasqual. With them he co -length several successful television programs, such as ‘No Passa Res’ (TV3) and ‘Tariro, Tariro’ (TVE), which led him to a large extent how television worked inside. The next step was clear.

Gestmusic arrives. In 1987 the trench published its latest album (‘Marro!’) And created the producer Gestmusic. Its foundation coincided with the arrival of private televisions and the massification of regional and local, and their success catapulted when one of the trio members, Pasqual, left the producer due to health problems and sold its part of Gestmusic to one of the most powerful multinationals in the audiovisual world, the Dutch Endemolcreator of the original ‘Big Brother’ format.

Two rode together. In a relatively short period of time, two very relevant proper names have disappeared from the national industry, perhaps those that have best defined the tone and style of mass television of the 21st century. Almost three years ago It was Paolo Vasile, who left his position as CEO of Mediaset. Without it we would not have had a format as influential as’Save me‘, in addition to giving green light to programs produced by Cruz himself, such as’ Big Brother’.

Between the two agglutinate (one as creative force, another as necessary administrative work from the most successful channel dome for many years) the mass of headers with the greatest impact in Spain in recent decades. It is no longer just about the success of audience of programs such as ‘Operation Triunfo’ or ‘Big Brother’, but beyond the obvious (these two franchises continue to add editions today), their seal is still very present in current programs of great impact.

The legacy. For example, one of the most successful programs today is ‘Your face sounds to me’, which has reached maximum of 25.1% quota: it is the nth variant of the ‘Operation Triunfo’ template (interpretation of pop standards, jury, skill), but with the template of “the contestants are famous”. A template that is lately devouring all competitions and realities… And that Gestmusic also invented with the very thunder and unclassifiable ‘Big Brother’ with Celebrities That was ‘Hotel Glam’.

Martian chronicles follow. And not only that: the studied balance of dynamics of order and chaos of ‘Martian chronicles’ continues to be in more harmless formats, such as’El Hormiguero‘(He shares part of his production team with the Sardá program). And, of course, with all kinds of pink information programs, starting with ‘Save Me’, also essential to understand the current television formats.

So far, so close. Gestmusic and Vasile gave some of the last chest that the industry has lived, taking into account that many of the current success formats are variations of ‘Big Brother’, ‘Operation Triunfo’. Television has always lived to cannibalize its own hits, so regardless of the issues about its future, what is very clear is that Cruz has been an essential part of understanding television in recent decades, and as we have reached what we have now.

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