Ximo Rovira is a television presenter who is part of the collective imagination of at least several generations of Valencians. He was one of the best-known faces of the defunct Channel 9 where he presented several spaces; one of these, Tómbola, which became a popular phenomenon, with extraordinary audience quotas, but also with harsh controversies. This program was held up for years as an example of “trash television.”
It’s been a long time since that. Ximo Rovira, who will soon turn 62, presented other spots on television and radio, and in 2011 he left Canal 9 and joined Levante TV, a television channel belonging to the Prensa Ibérica group. Now he returns to public television through the front door to be the presenter of the star program of the new season “Som a casa”, an afternoon magazine with Gema Payá.
How have you faced the challenge of returning to public television?
The challenge is very exciting, I am overflowing with affection. The truth is that the reception has been very special and I am very excited, I am not going to deny it to you. It’s a return home, and that has a special meaning for me.
How many years have you been out of the public entity?
The last program I did was in 2010-2011, that’s 12 years. Recently I was in a radio magazine. Since then I have worked at Levante TV, where I have been able to develop my work very well.
Did you long to return to public television?
A lot. In fact, when it reopened I thought I could contribute, help, transfer my experience to the new entertainment teams, which is the genre I know best. I wanted to be next to this new Valencian television project.
There was an attempt not long ago for you to come back and carry out a program, but there were people in the entity who opposed it, certainly with absurd arguments. How did you feel when you saw the door open and close again?
I found myself disappointed, sad, outcast, singled out. I didn’t deserve that. When you have a long professional life it is inevitable to mix it with your personal life, and that decision, personally, affected me a lot, it left me very touched. What happened happened and it’s not worth going back to, but it happened, a part of the structure of this house closed the door on me. But new people came in and everything has changed, and that change has been an opportunity for me. I tell you that that experience, that blow, in the end has surely served to value this moment much more in which I am once again a presenter on the television that I consider my home.
Do you feel that you have been stigmatized for having been the presenter of Tómbola? That stigma continues to haunt you?
That stigma has been a serious professional and personal detriment that has closed the door on me when I most wanted to contribute things, given my experience. It is an unfair stigma, a label that weighs, that is there, that has led certain people to limit me to a certain type of product, to do certain things. But this is not the case of Valencian society, who see me and identify me with a network, with television, with a way of enjoying entertainment.
What is Ximo Rovira like today after so many years in the profession and after so many years away from this house?
Time teaches you a lot. As a person, hard and difficult things have happened to me during these 10 years; but I have also grown, I have learned, and I have integrated bad things to transform them into experience. This next week I will be 62 years old, I am in a serene moment, I no longer have to prove anything to anyone, but I am a renewed Ximo, more emotional, with my feelings more on the surface; I’m a Ximo version 3.0 (laughs).
How do you value the television that is made now compared to that which you started on Channel 9 in the early 90s?
Basically it is the same, the key is to connect, break barriers so that the viewer identifies and you end up generating complicity. What has changed are the forms, now television is more natural. I remember that before when a problem happened in a live show you tried to hide it, not now, now everything flows and I think that’s good. And the technological changes are notable. But I think the essence remains the same, just with many more possibilities.
Now television platforms are triumphing while conventional television networks are struggling not to lose their market.
À Punt is in this competition, with difficulties in attracting an audience.
But the closure of Channel 9 in 2013 was something fundamental: a sentimental and emotional heritage was buried, a relationship with an audience that had been there for many years was broken. Then it was necessary to reopen on the ruins of the previous one, at a time when payment platforms had already started tough competition. One might think that the identity issue, being a television in Valencian, had a won segment, but it is not that easy, positioning a new brand is very difficult. But old formats are returning that, when renewed, are very successful, and I think we can manage to recover much of that trust that was had with the Valencian public.
It is curious how the way of consuming and producing television has changed in such a short time. Do you think it is possible to attract young people?
Anyone who has young people at home knows that they are on the multiscreen; They are not tied to a schedule, they want to consume television from any screen and anywhere. Televisions are working hard to avoid losing an audience that moves a lot on social networks. But I believe that conventional television will always have its audience, although looking for ways to bring these products to the ways in which young people consume.
