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Univision to End 'Sabado Gigante' After 53 Years

Unregistered said:
If it's top rated, why is it being cancelled? The article doesn't say.
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Don Francisco ("don" is not a name... it is a title of respect) is now 75, and likely wants to take it easy now.

And the show tends to be strong in older demos.
 
JayR said:
Good riddance!
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Care to explain why?

the show of don Francisco was enjoyed by two generations of Hispanics.

Just a wild guess: you don't speak Spanish and don't watch Univision.
 
DavidEduardo said:
Care to explain why?

the show of don Francisco was enjoyed by two generations of Hispanics.

Just a wild guess: you don't speak Spanish and don't watch Univision.
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How quickly you forget! I am an American Hispanic (my folks and most of my family come from "the island") and I speak and read Spanish (I did not learn English until I started Kindergarten). But that's beside the point. You cannot begin to understand how I had to put up with that crap of a show until I moved out of my parents' house. Even after I moved out I still had to put up with it when I would visit other family members.

Once again...good riddance!
 
JayR said:
How quickly you forget! I am an American Hispanic (my folks and most of my family come from "the island") and I speak and read Spanish (I did not learn English until I started Kindergarten). But that's beside the point. You cannot begin to understand how I had to put up with that crap of a show until I moved out of my parents' house. Even after I moved out I still had to put up with it when I would visit other family members.

Once again...good riddance!
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My bad. To me, the show was just another "Sube Nene Sube" or "Dále que Dále en Domingo" with a different host. Or a version of those Raúl Astor shows on Televisa.
 
Seriously? I remember a newspaper article some years ago that said this show was so popular the local affiliate (yes, in some markets it is a broadcast station like the CBS, ABC and NBC affiliates) didn’t dare run weather bulletins unless the situation was really, really bad.

I saw it a few years ago in the mountains when I stayed in a motel with all those channels I can’t afford at home. I enjoyed it. Don Francisco (I asume that’s who it was) was great. I didn’t understand enough Spanish to really follow anything but “Fun with English”, having had only one year in college, but I could tell it was a really good show. A little naughty.
 
Wow. Can't believe this. Don Francisco has been around since dirt and I wish him the best of retirement. I don't understand Spanish that well, but Sabado Gigante was a rather wild and crazy show at times. I remember they would have ranchero singers on, some game show segments, some comedy segments, and Don and his female host would do sponsor ads as well. Really different than the reruns on the big 4 English networks in America.

-crainbebo
 
crainbebo said:
Wow. Can't believe this. Don Francisco has been around since dirt and I wish him the best of retirement. I don't understand Spanish that well, but Sabado Gigante was a rather wild and crazy show at times. I remember they would have ranchero singers on, some game show segments, some comedy segments, and Don and his female host would do sponsor ads as well. Really different than the reruns on the big 4 English networks in America.

-crainbebo
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The term "don" is an honorific, not a name. It is not capitalized. It's sort of like addressing an older person as "sir".

Francisco is his stage name...not a last name.
.
 
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That thing is finally ending!! It's amazing it continued to be relevant for so long, it hasn't been run in Argentina since the late 1990s and Chile (its country of origin before production moved to Miami) stopped running it several years ago after the audience lost the interest on all the Hispanic-oriented material that is ironically too foreign for people living over here.
 
Unregistered said:
If it's top rated, why is it being cancelled? The article doesn't say.
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It's mainly because Univision is ramping up to an IPO and wants to cut costs before they go on the market, so they're doing some big cuts before they go public so the analysts don't end up questioning things like talent and studio expenditures that aren't as big a concern when it's private. Univision's been negotiating with Don Francisco to end the show more on his terms than those of their future stockholders, thus it gets to go out on top than with a thousand little cuts.

The other problem though was in the 80's when Univision started, it was the only game in town; unless you were on a border market, Univision was the only channel on your cable system in Spanish. In 2015, it's one of sixty Spanish channels I have, including homegrown channels from South America, Central America and Mexico. Their 'appeal to everyone speaking Spanish' track is being cut apart now, espcially by Telemundo, and why have to take only a few moments of news for your one ancestral area when you can turn on Multimedios, TV Chile or even the El Salvadorean channel and get it right from there? Or if you aren't a fan of Cuban music, you can head to Bandamax and get your Norteno fix there all day and all night. Sabado Gigante is becoming a victim now of what the English networks had when the cable networks began to splinter the audience and kill the variety format there in the early 80's.
 
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Even if you speak almost no Spanish (like me) "Sabado Gigante" and the other variety shows on the Spanish-speaking networks are still enjoyable because of the musical acts, often top names on the Latin music charts and usually excellent. True, shows like that are throwbacks to the live-TV days, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Anglo TV has long forgotten how to make variety shows, I hope Latino TV never totally loses the knack. Hats off to SG for an amazing "run."
 
Eduardo said:
That thing is finally ending!! It's amazing it continued to be relevant for so long, it hasn't been run in Argentina since the late 1990s and Chile (its country of origin before production moved to Miami) stopped running it several years ago after the audience lost the interest on all the Hispanic-oriented material that is ironically too foreign for people living over here.
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In Chile the show had been done for many years prior to cancellation by don Francisco's daughter, not by him.
 
I should point out that Sabado Gigante during its 53 years on the air is also the longest-running, weekly episodic program in TV history with around 2,400 episodes!!!

Vince McMahon can dispute that claim all he wants in "WWE Raw's" favor, but it's the truth now.
 
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What will ever fill that void? Don Francisco and Sábado Gigante are an institution and a fixture in Spanish-speaking homes all over the world
 
mrschimpf said:
The other problem though was in the 80's when Univision started, it was the only game in town; unless you were on a border market, Univision was the only channel on your cable system in Spanish. In 2015, it's one of sixty Spanish channels I have, including homegrown channels from South America, Central America and Mexico. Their 'appeal to everyone speaking Spanish' track is being cut apart now, espcially by Telemundo, and why have to take only a few moments of news for your one ancestral area when you can turn on Multimedios, TV Chile or even the El Salvadorean channel and get it right from there? Or if you aren't a fan of Cuban music, you can head to Bandamax and get your Norteno fix there all day and all night. Sabado Gigante is becoming a victim now of what the English networks had when the cable networks began to splinter the audience and kill the variety format there in the early 80's.
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How in the world would those people we depend on to harvest crops be able to afford all of this?

And how many people who still speak Spanish can afford that many channels? I guess the companies could offer packages without all those English channels.
 
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