It is strange to see and hear Pedro Piqueras, with the clear forehead of Pedro Piqueras and the unmistakable voice of Pedro Piqueras, in street clothes, calmly drinking a coffee at 11 a.m., and not in a suit and tie, around the Evening news broadcast on TELEVISION. We talked in the canteen of the Ateneo de Madrid and later, to his delight, the photographer photographed him in the office that Don Manuel Azaña had in the house. He still has two news programs left, I tell him as we say goodbye. He laughs and clarifies: “No, I left, from Monday to Thursday, from today until December 21st.” On that day he will offer the Telecinco editorial team “Hungarian salami, Manchego cheese” and wine to toast with his team and conclude his 50-year career in television, radio and the press. I suspect he wants it and fears it in equal measure.
Why Hungarian? The salami, I say.
Because it is very good and because I want the best for my team, they are the best and they have been wonderful years together.
In other words, it is a “gourmet”.
Let's say I'm a pleasure seeker, I'm fatter than I'd like and I go on a diet often, but then many evenings I go to the vending machine and get a chocolate palm, the truth is that the sugar rush is good for me . The stress of life.
Why are you leaving, why now?
I've wanted to go there for two years. I noticed that my age was starting to weigh on me, as if the terrain I was walking on was changing. I no longer had the agility I had to make the quick decisions this job requires and thought about quitting. I said it on the network. They asked me to stay. Then came Ukraine, the diabolical election year, Gaza, the inauguration, and you ask yourself: How are you going to get out of there? I steered clear of responsibility until, after the investiture was decided and a new news director was appointed, I said, “It’s now or never.”
Iñaki Gabilondo He retired at 80 because he was “bored” of listening to himself. Do you understand?
I will use a bullfighting analogy. I'm like the bullfighters at the end of the season: I'm stuck. They don't know whether to fight with the left or with the right, they do everything right, by profession, but at some point they know that they have to stop. Plus, I've been doing the same thing for 34 years: going out at 10 p.m. without having a social life. I am 68 years old. Not everything is work.
They say, that Borja Prado, outgoing president of Mediaset, wanted to go into the kitchen to politically influence the channel's content. Do you know?
He never entered my kitchen. I'll leave it at that.
His colleagues give sermons every evening. How editorial?
I don't edit. I am not a preacher of the gospel, but a channel, a narrator of what is happening. I never stand next to anyone, it's important to keep my distance. I learned factual journalism at a young age on Spanish television. And from my teacher Jesús Hermida, who shouldn't raise one eyebrow higher than the other: from him who couldn't stop moving his bangs. Of course I have my ideas, I'm progressive, but I only give my opinion when undemocratic boundaries are crossed. Nobody knows what I'm about. There are still those who ask me to my face and I consider it a triumph.
He has an older son, but he was still a baby too. How did you reconcile?
Bad, like all journalists. The fact that I am fortunate that they have always made my life easier and that no one has blamed me does not change the fact that I was an absent father at times. At one time, when I was working on TVE's morning show and got up very early, my son, who was 6 or 7 years old, said to a bricklayer who was doing a renovation at home: “You really work, not like my father, “der.” spends the day sleeping.
I think he has chosen his successor, Carlos Franganillolike royal father or patriarch of the “succession”.
Hahaha. Let's say I helped Carlos Montero, Mediaset's new news director, make the decision. Franganillo seemed the best to me. I got to know him in several reports, which was always my favorite part of being a journalist as a journalist, and I suggested it to him once. I think in some ways we are similar. We keep our distance from the information. We don't show ourselves. I don't know what he stands for politically, he's in great shape, he speaks languages, he's the future.
Their poker faces are famous when they gave in to their news straight from the “Sálvame” circus. How did you deal with that?
Isabel Pantoja's niece lying naked in the snow directly paved the way for me, or Raquel Mosquera, who I know and respect, who sent me “a big kiss” in the middle of the Covid, in which there are hundreds of deaths every day . This should never have happened. I got very angry about the situation but then I called Raquel to apologize because the story didn't suit her, one doesn't mean the other.
Pedro Piqueras, who confesses that he “enjoys the table” and is “on a diet at times”, poses in the cafeteria of the Ateneo de Madrid. Bernardo Perez Tovar
Does he go with a withered brow?
Well, not so much. I leave with less hair and white. Especially in the last few years, I have lost my composure in this job.
I think his baldness is bad.
Let's see, if things were bad for me, I would have done something about it. My father was bald, that was sung. Now I even like my profile as a Roman senator and I comb my hair back to enhance the effect.
Continue with the tango, 50 years of work are nothing?
They are a lot and at the same time a sigh. I really enjoyed this job. I also suffered my own thing, hence the gray hair.
Why did he suffer more?
Because they didn't reach the news, because they stepped on it, because, above all, they weren't fair. I am a big ruminator and I take my worries home with me. I try to do a very honest job, not aggressive, telling things the way I think, and when you realize you've failed, it's hard for you.
Does it also suffer from audience data?
The data is not as important when you win as when you lose. When you lose, it hurts you.
Well, he will be very hurt because his newscast has lost its audience.
I was a leader for 11 years, which is supposedly too soon, and it sucks to stop. But the dates depend not just on one, but on what you have on your grill before and after, and what lies ahead. I did it with the certainty that I had done a good job given the circumstances and resources.
Information is not exactly Telecinco's priority.
True: In the age of augmented reality and media representations, I always had a poster of the skyline of, I think, Singapore behind me. In exchange for not investing, I had absolute freedom. Now that information will be the House's big bet, my colleagues will enjoy it. Let's say I've been walking through the desert like Moses and now that the Promised Land is in sight, I get out. I leave Franganillo a clean house and a great team of great professionals as colleagues.
It will no longer give way to “apocalyptic images,” as in one Video Yours being shared on YouTube.
This was the work of comedian Raúl Pérez, who made a video compiling the three times I said it. That's when I got angry with him. Now we are good friends.
I think he makes some incredible paellas even though he's from Albacete. Who taught him?
And I play the Valencia anthem sung by Francisco at full volume. María José San Román, the chef at the Monastrell restaurant in Alicante, once told me that the cooking time depends on the quality of the water. And in Madrid that is exactly the time from putting out the fire to serving. This is how my guests' tears flow: first at the anthem and then at the rice.
And now this? Many “stuck” bullfighters eventually return to the ring.
Now go to dinner where people go. To do yoga. Learning piano is a way to concentrate on something and leave your head empty. I have a lot to do and already have speaking engagements, but I need to detox first. The problem will be the first day without an agenda. Let's see who I'm having lunch with. I don't want to beat people up. I already miss TV and I haven't left yet. Without television nothing will be the same.
Does he leave with more pain or more glory?
With sadness, very much. I can't say the fame.
What is it like to read your own obituaries while you are still alive?
Ha ha. It's funny how people talk about you in the past tense. And also pleasant because the eulogies are generally loving. As they say in Amanece, it is not a little: I am contingent and the others are necessary. I did what I could with what I had. I've never done the perfect newscast. I'll leave that to Franganillo.
The most tense day
Pedro Piqueras' (Albacete, 68 years old) most tense day in front of the cameras was not September 11 or March 11, but December 14, 1986, the day of the first massive general strike in the government of Felipe González. “Televisión Española went black and only this news program was broadcast as a minimal service; the unions were before me, imagine the responsibility, we had 100% of the audience before us,” now recalls the one who would be the head of news at RTVE before moving to private television channels.
His passion for telling current events began when, at the age of 18, before he even began his studies, he began writing in the Albacete branch of the Pueblo newspaper, while maintaining a love of music that even led him to write The New Mester of Minstrelsy. Now, after half a century of professional career, almost always in front of the camera, the director and anchor of the evening news program on Telecinco, his last professional destination and one of the most popular faces in the country, says goodbye to everyone. Or at least until later, because before he leaves he admits that he already misses him.
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