Starting this week, La 1 launches a bold new season that searches for the most relevant and admired person in Spain. The public broadcaster will air a live premiere of The Best in History this Friday, February 16, at 10:00 p.m. The show is hosted by Silvia Intxaurrondo.
The format will go head to head with other major programs such as Challenge, the leading early evening program on Antena 3, and Friday, a prime-time offering on Telecinco hosted by Bea Archidona and Santi Acosta.
Intxaurrondo will be joined by well known collaborators and experts from various fields who will examine the career, genius, virtues and enduring legacy of the people who have shaped history in Spain and beyond.
Today the Spanish audience will decide who deserves the title of The Best in History. A panel of fifty figures has been selected, spanning scientists, artists, communicators, athletes, politicians and writers, from Christopher Columbus to Rosalía de Castro, Isabel II, Pablo Picasso, Ramón y Cajal, Amancio Ortega and Fernando Alonso.
The fifty contenders are organized into five groups, with ten finalists from each group. Across six episodes, a weekly online vote will determine and pit the top two figures from each group in a duel.
From every program, a finalist will emerge as the audience favorite. The five figures with the most votes from the earlier rounds will advance to the finale, where one will be crowned The Best in History.
The show is produced by The Pool and represents a Spanish adaptation of the successful BBC format The 100 Greatest Britons. The format has inspired more than thirty international editions, including versions in Germany, Canada, the United States, France, Finland, Portugal and Argentina.
The premiere program
The lineup for the first episode includes Federico García Lorca, Lola Flores, Andrés Iniesta, Emilio Aragón, Rosalía de Castro, Francisco de Goya, Hernán Cortés, Ferran Adrià, Agustina de Aragón, and Fernando Alonso. One of these figures will advance to the finals in the opening show.
Silvia will be on set alongside Aníbal Gómez. Gómez is a comedian, actor and singer who has worked across television, film and series for nearly twenty years. He will embody the voice of the everyday Spaniard, sharing reactions and opinions gathered from social networks and from the audience on set.
To bring a contemporary angle to the storytelling, another collaborator from the digital world will join. Charlyokei, a pioneering content creator known for street journalism on TikTok with millions of followers, will appear as the program’s on-street presence. Known to fans as @charlyokei, he will gauge and present, in a natural, entertaining and charismatic way, what both young and older viewers know about the heroes being profiled.