JESSICA NIETO
Updated on Friday, 23July2021-01: 51
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Which gulf of the Baltic Sea is located between Sweden and Finland?
Think before answering.
The correct answer is the Gulf of Bothnia.
Thanks to her, the four contestants that made up the
Los Lobos team
won the jackpot of the
Boom!
Program in July 2019
:
4.1 million euros.
To this figure must be added what they had accumulated in the 500 programs they had been participating in: 2.5 million.
In total, 6,600,000 euros
.
Numbers that made them enter the
Guinness Book of Records
as the contestants who have spent the longest time on a show and who have pocketed the highest prize.
ADMIRATION
But the feat of
Erundino Alonso, Manuel Zapata, Valentín Ferrero
and
Alberto Sanfrutos
was not the result of chance. They belong to what is known as
professional television contestants.
If you knew the answer that opens this report, perhaps you could be one of them
. "They add programs day after day, create loyalty in the audience and become one of the family after dinner,"
says
Marisa Pérez,
coordinator of
Script and Selection of Contestants
for
Saber y Ganar.
"Testing oneself encourages watching contests. But also, admiration for those contestants who are true geeks," he adds.
For this reason, the chains raffle them.
They just have to keep track of the faces that appear in the different formats.
The members of Los Lobos met at the meetings of former contestants of the Saber y Ganar program, which, with more than 24 years on the air, is considered the great pool of professional contestants in Spain.
"It is arduous. Here they do the filming and little by little they are adding experience and they hit the jump," says Pérez.
The program receives more than 150 applications per month,
between mail and telephone, and all its applicants have to pass a selection test in order to participate, which consists of a
personal and a cultural test.
"We seek a variety, both men and women, different ages, different geographical areas, graduates, but also retired or with trades such as butcher, portfolio, rancher ...
No one is exempt for their studies or their profession," he
says.
VISIBILITY
If Saber y Ganar is the quarry,
Pasapalabra
is the program that provides visibility and turns anonymous faces into acquaintances by being the most watched program on television.
Its broadcast, which returned to
Antena 3
in May 2020, after the dispute with
Mediaset
for the rights of the format, has allowed the chain to improve its audience by more than 12% in the period from 4.30 p.m. to 9.00 p.m. Today, it concentrates a 25% share (more than three million viewers every day), the best share of the grid in prime time and the golden minute. The figure grew to 4.3 million people (30% share) on July 1, when
Pablo Díaz
(who also participated during the time it was broadcast on Telecinco) achieved the jackpot of 1.82 million euros.
Tax-free,
for just over a year of participation in the contest (260 programs), you will receive just over 1,032,000 euros.
To achieve this, Díaz acknowledged that he has been studying for six years, although the amount is profitable if one takes into account that the average salary in Spain, according to INE data, is 24,000 gross euros.
The success of the format lies in the casting.
"It is the basis of everything. We are looking, mainly, for people who answer well. Who know how to play
Rosco
and get enough answers", explains
Montserrat Ramos,
Editorial Coordinator.
To find them, the team follows two dynamics: open casting, publicized in programs and social networks, and closed, of people who have left their data to participate.
They have received more than 500 applications a week.
Now the figure is around 60.
Erundino Alonso, Lilit Manukyan, Ion Aramendi (presenter), Ruth de Andrés, David Leo and Paz Herrera, hunters and presenter of the contest 'El cazador'.
ROSCO EFFECT
The selection process is not easy.
To be chosen, future contestants must pass two paper donuts with a maximum number of failures and a test in front of the camera.
By the way, to configure the Rosco, its star test and the one that has given rise to the so-called Rosco effect (phenomenon by which, the content that happens to it, usually the informative of
Vicente Vallés,
although the night of Díaz's triumph was
El Hormiguero ,
automatically grows in audience) the dictionaries of the
Royal Spanish Academy
and that of
María Moliner are used.
"
Of the 25 words that each one contains, three or four are of high difficulty and the rest, affordable,
with some that may generate some doubt or require thinking about it a little more, "says Borja Pérez, Script coordinator." Once done, they go through different reviews and filters to ensure that both have the same level of difficulty and there are no errors. ", bill.
STARS
Díaz is the last winner, but the contest has had others like
Lilit Manukyan,
who received, on November 21, 2014, the title of
Princess of the Program
when she won the 318,000 euro jackpot.
An extra merit if one takes into account that Spanish is not their mother tongue.
Of Armenian origin, his secret to succeed in a language other than his native one is to watch all the TV contests, not only in Spain, but also in other countries, such as Russia, documentaries and current affairs.
Meanwhile,
Paz Herrera, an
architect by profession, was proclaimed the queen of the format in 2016 by getting a pot of 1.3 million euros, the sixth highest in the contest and the highest achieved by a woman.
Both today are part of the
El Cazador
(RTVE) staff, a format that has been adapted in more than eight countries and in which four anonymous contestants join their knowledge to win the hunter, a true professional in television contests and who is represented in five different people, all of them salaried employees of the public chain.
"The hunters are the soul and the brand of the format, the heroes to beat," says
Hugo Tomás,
Head of Entertainment at
Mediacrest
and executive producer of
this show, which receives more than 1,000 applications each season.
The quintet is completed, in addition to Manukyan and Herrera themselves and the aforementioned Alonso, David Leo and Ruth de Andrés, both former contestants of Saber y Ganar and Pasapalabra.
Because they?
Tomás affirms: "It is not easy to find people with culture, communication skills, who grow up before the nerves of the set and fall in love with the general public. For this reason,
good contestants are always diamonds coveted
by all programs."
WORK ALTERNATIVE
Of the five, Leo is the only one who has made contests his profession.
"The normal thing is that it supposes a complement to the salary corresponding to another trade.
I decided to make it my first occupation because, when I started, my job prospects were not very promising", says this poet from '88, a graduate in Hispanic Philology. Thus, in 2013, when the unemployment rate reached the historical figure of 27.16% (more than 6 million people), he started his preparation. Three years later, in 2016 he won 1.86 million euros in Pasapalabra, since then the second highest prize awarded in this format.
If Leo became a contestant to avoid unemployment,
Ruth de Andrés,
a contest rescued her from unemployment.
Today, television is the occupation of this administrative.
After passing through Pasapalabra (it only lasted one day) and Saber y Ganar, (it took 50,000 euros), it has already received proposals from other programs, such as
Who wants to be a millionaire?
Do you dare to become a professional contestant?
Part for the Treasury
The prizes are a capital gain that is taxed in personal income tax. When they are in cash, the money is added to the rest of the income and taxes are paid for that total according to the general income brackets. From 0 to 12,450 euros, 19%; 12,450.01 to 20,200 (24%); 20,200.01-35,200 (30%); 35,200.01-60,000 (37%); and 60,000.01-300,000 (45%). Next year a sixth comes into force, for returns that exceed 300,000.01 (taxed at 47%). These percentages include a state part and an autonomous part, which varies according to the community. In general, the production companies retain 19% of the winnings so that the contestant can comply with their tax obligations. If it is not enough, you will pay the rest when you make the income statement. Meanwhile, the prizes in kind are computed by a monetary value and that amount is added as profit.In the case of Pablo Díaz, the Treasury will keep 45.5% (24.5% corresponds to the state quota and 21% to that of the Community of Madrid).
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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