“Welcome to the only program where democracy, demoscopy and demography will not be empty words“. On a television full of long sentences with short ideas, Risto Mejide He begins his new program on Telecinco with big ideas in concrete phrases. That’s why he’s a publicist. “Concepts that were born more than 2,000 years ago in an agora, in a square, in a forum… like this one,” he concludes. Then, the darkness of the set at the Picasso Studios is illuminated to reveal a set of circular stands like a parliament. Almost three hundred citizens gathered and grouped by generational decades.
The stage liturgy is done. Risto has been handling television narratives since he was very young. We met him at the provocation of the juror’s sentence, but maturity sometimes teaches you that The great transgression of television is knowing how to listen. And here it is proposed to give a voice to the people of the street. And that’s what makes it different demos of others and so many debates.
Many other debates designed to warm heads more than to reach meeting and learning points. That is one of the big problems of current television: we have seen the trick. The gathering is used to attract attention through the intensity of the polarized clash, which is one of the bases of the political disaffection into which we are plummeting.
In this aversion, it has helped that current affairs are narrated as a reality show in which hate has become the main instrument of mobilization. And not the ideas. Habemus setback, in the networks we only go where we find those who agree with us. While on TV it has been decided to discard the critical spirit. Thus, the TV has been transformed into a predictable household appliance. For example, it usually has the same members who come and go from one network to another under the excuse that They are recognizable by the viewer. Although, in reality, they bore the viewer for that very reason, since they already know what they are going to argue before they open their mouths. Because they always support the same trench.
There are hardly any writers anymore. There are hardly any philosophers anymore. There are hardly any subject matter experts in the gatherings anymore. There are a handful of party talkers that it is easy to predict what they will say. Many even live exclusively off the talk show’s salary. Which makes them mercenaries of what TV is supposed to need. Or what the arguments of the parties they “represent” demand. They cannot lose the screen so as not to lose their status.
As a consequence, the public feels that television is becoming detached from the reality of the street. He doesn’t speak their language. He speaks the language of glass offices, restaurants with booths and luxury developments. Unlike in the past, when Maria Teresa Campos He opened the phones at his political table or I have a question for you It pitted politicians against a representative sample of society, the programs debate a lot but listen little. Despite living in the era of hyperconnected civilization, with more means of communication than ever. Communication channels that, paradoxically, isolate us in bubbles of self-confidence rather than fostering bridges.
Risto Mejide wants to recover the essence of meeting each other. And in the first program you can see how he enjoys being in the center of an auditorium of anonymous people wanting to take the microphone and express their concerns and ideals. There in the middle, between such disparate voices, Mejide achieves the balance of honesty and celebration, revealed by a mischievous smile that You can’t help it when the live show surprises you. Or his own cell phone, since he has it in his hand. Ideal for making the audience feel like they can read your tweet at any time.
So demos has been released as a debate without commentators that matches the classic essence of Telecinco. He doesn’t want to be TVE. Neither does La Sexta. It is more like the festive demand of the neighborhood, where you can sigh about the impossible prices of housing in Spain and, at the same time, start dancing like a festival. It is not incompatible, it is life itself. Joy is a way of breathing, it is the breeze that soothes, the current that pushes, the fresh air that excites. Even if it is a breath that only lasts a breath.
