María Mercedes Milá Mencos (born 4 April 1951) is a Spanish

television presenter A television presenter (or television host, some become a "television personality") is a person who introduces or hosts television show, television programs, often serving as a mediator for the program and the audience. It is common for people ...

and

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

, most notable for her work on Spain's

Telecinco Telecinco is a Spanish free-to-air television channel operated by Mediaset España. The channel was previously known as Tele 5, because it had first begun its experimental transmissions on 10 March 1989, and a year later, it was officially laun ...

's '' Gran Hermano'', the Spanish version of the

reality television Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring ordinary people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 1990s ...

series '' Big Brother''.

Biography

Mercedes Milá was born in

Esplugues de Llobregat Esplugues de Llobregat () is a municipality of the Barcelona metropolitan area. Formerly in the ''Barcelonès'', since 1990 it has been part of the Comarques of Catalonia, comarca of Baix Llobregat. During recent decades Esplugues has evolved fro ...

on 5 April 1951, the daughter of José Luis Milá Sagnier, Count of

Montseny Montseny () is a municipality and village in the Vallès Oriental comarca in Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalo ...

, and Mercedes Mencos, and eldest of six brothers and sisters (including newscaster Lorenzo Milá). She studied

Philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

, but abandoned it and then studied

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the journ ...

and arts in

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

, where he got a

Bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

. She first worked as journalist in ''El Correo de Andalucía'', in

Sevilla Seville ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula. Seville ...

. Shortly afterwards she began working in the newsrooms of Spanish public broadcaster

Televisión Española (acronym TVE, branded tve, "Spanish Television") is Spain's national state-owned public television broadcaster and the oldest regular television service in the country. It was also the first regular television service in Equatorial Guinea. T ...

. She joined the sports division, where she remained between 1974 and 1978, when she was selected to co-host, along with Isabel Tenaille, the talk show ''Dos por Dos'' ("Two by Two"). After the show was cancelled, Milá returned to radio. She worked with Iñaki Gabilondo in

Cadena SER La Cadena SER (the SER Network) is a Spanish radio network established in 1924, with a regular listenership of 4,139,000 reported in 2018. The acronym SER stands for Sociedad Española de Radiodifusión (Spanish Broadcasting Company). Cadena SE ...

. Milá's TV comeback came in 1982 with the program ''Buenas Noches'' ("Goodnight"), which became one of the hits of the season and lasted until 1984. Her personal style and directness with her guests helped her turn into one of the most popular Spanish TV personalities of the 1980s. After a brief stint with the Catalan television station

TV3 Channel 3 or TV 3 may refer to: Television *Canal 3 (Burkina Faso), a commercial television channel in Burkina Faso * Canal 3 Niger, a commercial television channel in Niger * Canal 3 (Guatemala), a commercial television channel in Guatemala * Can ...

, and then back in TVE in 1990, she moved over to new private TV network Antena 3 in the early nineties, where she stayed until moving to private broadcaster Telecinco in 2000. In 2000 she found renewed success as the host of the Spanish franchise of hit reality show '' Gran Hermano'', earning poor critical reviews but massive ratings. As of 2017, Milá has hosted fifteen of the seventeen regular seasons of the show (all except for season 3 in 2002 which was hosted by Pepe Navarro, and season 17 in 2016 which was hosted by Jorge Javier Vázquez) and two All Stars seasons. In 2016 she hosted a TV program named ''Convénzeme, con Z de Zweig'' which motivates people to read. In 2012 she published a book based on the

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

she writes in

named ''Lo que me sale del bolo''. In February 2019 she will host the TV program ''Scott y Mila'' in

Movistar+ Movistar Plus+ (formerly Movistar+) is the trade name of the subscription platform for digital television owned by , which operates in Spain. The service is distributed via optical fiber and ADSL as well as with satellites such as Astra. The pl ...

Shows

Televisión Española

* ''Polideportivo'' (1974–1978) * '' Dos por dos'' (1978) * '' Buenas noches'' (1982–1984) * ''De jueves a jueves'' (1986) * ''El martes que viene'' (1990)

TV3

* ''Dilluns, dilluns'' (1988)

Antena 3

* ''Queremos saber'' (1992–1993) * ''Más que palabras'' (1995) * ''Sin límites'' (1998) * ''Queremos saber más'' (2002)

Telecinco

* '' Gran Hermano'' (2000–2015) (excluding Gran Hermano 3 and the VIP seasons) * ''Diario de''... (2004–2011) * ''La tribu'' (2009) with Javier Sardá

Cuatro

* ''Diario de...'' (2011–) * ''El comecocos'' (2011) as a judge

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mila, Mercedes Gran Hermano (Spanish TV series) Spanish women television presenters Living people 1951 births Spanish television journalists