Belén Esteban lifted Telecinco to an 18.7% audience share and 1,130,000 viewers. Her return has exposed the network's unresolved afternoon problem, with much of the old Sálvame circle already back inside Mediaset.
On Friday, 25 September 2026, ¡De viernes! drew 1,130,000 viewers and an 18.7% share after Belén Esteban returned to the programme. The result led the evening against La Voz on Antena 3.
It also pushed ¡De viernes! above one million viewers for the first time since 2024. That is a big result.
The 18.7% share was described by several Spanish television outlets as one of ¡De viernes!'s best results and a record for the format in its regular Friday-night slot.
One strong broadcast cannot repair a network. It can force Mediaset to face a decision made three years ago.
The striking detail is not only Esteban's audience. Much of the television world Mediaset tried to leave behind is already inside Telecinco again. Jorge Javier Vázquez presents El diario de Jorge in the afternoon. Terelu Campos and Lydia Lozano are linked to ¡De viernes!, while Rosa Benito appears in reality-related content.
Esteban has now returned as a proven audience driver for a major prime-time broadcast. The pieces are there.
Telecinco has not decided how to put them together.
In May 2023, Mediaset España's new leadership moved against Telecinco's previous identity. After Paolo Vasile's departure, the group confirmed that Sálvame would end. It also announced that Ana Rosa Quintana would leave the mornings and take charge of the afternoon schedule after the summer.
The change reached beyond one programme. It replaced a programming system built around recognisable personalities and stories that moved across the channel.
The impact was visible beyond the programme itself: Telecinco closed 25 September with a 10.6% daily share, well above its September average of about 8.3%, according to audience reports cited by El Mundo and ElPlural.
Sálvame had been on air for fourteen years and was already showing clear signs of exhaustion. Its audience was below its best levels. The case for reform was real.
The strategic mistake may have been treating the decline of one programme as proof that the whole identity around it had expired. Telecinco removed Sálvame but did not find an alternative with the same recognition to organise its afternoons.
That failed to produce an easy rescue elsewhere. Members of the television family tried to rebuild on another channel, but La familia de la tele on La 1 showed that familiar personalities do not automatically take their audience with them.
Sálvame was never only Esteban, Jorge Javier, María Patiño, Lydia Lozano or Terelu Campos. Its pull came from those figures, Telecinco's codes, the schedule, the internal competition and the bond with viewers.
That distinction matters beyond television. A previous cinema analysis described how a title could become a shared event before its release. Telecinco has now seen a similar effect in another form. One familiar personality turned a routine return into a measurable television event on the channel that made her famous.
Mediaset tested a partial reunion during the summer. De lunes a viernes, presented by Santi Acosta and Beatriz Archidona, brought Lydia Lozano, Terelu Campos, Rosa Benito and Karmele Marchante into the afternoon schedule.
The programme was canceled in September. Ana Rosa's production company took the slot back. The people involved remained part of Telecinco's wider ecosystem.
Jorge Javier's position makes the next few months useful for testing. He renewed with Mediaset in 2024 until July 2027 and already hosts El diario de Jorge.
The programme could remain a testimony format. It could also add current affairs, celebrity coverage and contributors from other Telecinco programmes. Esteban's appearances could show whether viewers respond to a new mix rather than a direct revival.
Mediaset does not need to recreate Sálvame exactly as it existed in 2015 or 2020. It could expand El diario de Jorge, connect it with another programme or build a new afternoon structure around personalities already under contract or linked to the network.
The name is secondary. The real question is whether Telecinco can rebuild a coherent ecosystem in which stories and presenters support one another across the schedule.
The 18.7% share proves neither that Sálvame should return nor that a new afternoon would succeed. It does show that Belén Esteban and the codes tied to that earlier Telecinco still have the power to create an event on Telecinco itself.
Mediaset should treat the result as a test, not as a call for simple nostalgia. The sensible move is not to bring back the past unchanged. It is to use the people the network already has and build a recognisable present.
As eldiario.es and other Spanish television outlets have noted, Esteban's return is part of a wider reappearance of figures linked to the Sálvame universe. It was not an isolated booking.
