The journalist Ana Blanco (Portugalete, Bizkaia, 61 years old), the face of TVE news for more than 30 years, will leave this function in the new season that starts this September. The presenter, who since 2018 has been in charge of the desktop edition of the La 1 newscast from Monday to Friday, and who since 1990 has remained one of the fixed names in the news on public television, has been the one who made the decision to leave this function at the turn of the summer, and so it will happen, as El Confidencial Digital has advanced and EL PAÍS has been able to confirm by TVE sources.
The public corporation has not yet decided who will take over. Ana Blanco will remain linked to Spanish Television and will lead a new news program “linked to current affairs,” explains RTVE in a statement sent this Monday. On September 14, when the network presents its new programming, they will explain the details of the presenter’s new destination.
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This will be a historic change for TVE. Ana Blanco is one of the names most strongly linked to the public corporation and one of its referents. Her departure from the news comes at a time when both the main public channel and its news spaces are going through a profound audience crisis. Until July of this year, the average audience of La 1 has remained at 8.6% screen share (in 2021, the annual average was 8.8%, its negative record so far). As for the news on La 1, so far this year they have averaged a 10.2% share, and since March they have not reached double digits, data that is more than worrying and far removed from that of the Antena news 3, which remain leaders with an average share of 19.4% so far this year. The departure of Ana Blanco, one of the faces of reference for viewers within the chain, could mean an even greater departure of viewers, so the search for a replacement is a fundamental task for the corporation.
Little given to giving interviews and talking about herself, the public only knows what Blanco is really like through the words of her peers. Some of the adjectives that most define her are perfectionist, calm and with a great capacity for improvisation, qualities that make her a surefire way to cover breaking news. “She is very disciplined and aware that you have to know what you are going to tell. She always knows how to elegantly get out of any situation, ”the journalist Jesús Álvarez, one of the companions that Blanco has had before the cameras, told EL PAÍS a few years ago.
Sergio Sauca, another of the journalists who has shared news with Blanco, spoke of her as the “main reference of Spanish Television as a presenter, and not only in news.” And he added: “She has managed to avoid the changes of government, changes of managers in the chain that are so common in our country… And all of this is very difficult to achieve without a sponsor. For me she is a reference because she has shown that with professionalism you can get there. It represents the spirit of Televisión Española, that the team is above the star player”.
It was on September 15, 1990 when Spanish viewers saw Ana Blanco presenting the news for the first time. She had previously worked on Los 40 Principales, Radio 16 and Telemadrid. On September 11, 1990, she appeared at a TVE casting to find new news presenters, and only four days later she debuted in that position in the weekend edition accompanying Francine Gálvez and in the midst of the Gulf War. In the following season she went on to present the evening news of La 2.
First news of Ana Blanco in 1990
Since then he has been in charge, in different stages, of both Newscast 1, Newscast 2 and the weekend edition. Among his colleagues in this task have been Matías Prats (with whom he shared a table between 1992 and 1996), María Escario, Jesús Álvarez and Sergio Sauca, who were in charge of sports information.
In 2007, he obtained a fixed position on TVE, after 17 years contracted. From that same year until 2009, she co-presented the iconic weekly report, where she was accompanied by journalists such as Pepa Bueno, Lorenzo Milá, María Casado or Ana Pastor. In 2009 she took charge of the program I have a question for you, in which the politicians of the moment faced the questions of various citizens. Since 2018, she was in charge of presenting, alone, the news at 3:00 p.m. on La 1, after another five years as head of the second edition. The one on July 15, when she began her summer vacations, was the last newscast that she has presented after more than 7,400 news programs on TVE.
Her professional career over these more than 30 years has led her to narrate recent national and international history: from the 11-S and 11-M attacks to various general, European and regional elections, the abdication of Juan Carlos I and the proclamation of Felipe VI, the death of Adolfo Suárez, the appointments of Popes Benedict XVI and Francisco, in addition to the wedding of Felipe VI and Letizia or the victory of Spain in the World Cup in South Africa. In addition, she has interviewed the last three presidents of the Government and moderated two electoral debates.
Her journalistic career has earned her seven Iris awards from the Television Academy —six for best news presenter and one for her entire professional career—, two Golden Antennas, a Golden Microphone, the International Press Club Award, the Pedro Antonio de Alarcón National Journalism Award and the Ondas Award for best television presenter in 2015. That same year, her colleagues paid tribute to her on her 25th birthday in the news.
This will not be the only change that TVE presents in the next season related to news programs. In the morning slot, La 1 will try to attract the audience with a new current affairs magazine presented by journalists Lourdes Maldonado and Marc Calderó.
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