Karmele Marchante

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Karmele Marchante
 
Born
María del Carmen Marchante Barrobés

September 15, 1946 (age 73)
EducationUniversity of Navarra
OccupationTV personality
Notable workSálvame
Campamento de verano
La Noria
Eurovision Song Contest
Survivor Spain
TNT
A tu lado
Día a día
Como la vida
Tómbola
Pasa la vida
La Tarde
SpouseDiego Soto (2010-2013)

María del Carmen Marchante Barrobés (born September 15, 1946 in Tortosa, Tarragona, Catalonia), better known as Karmele Marchante, is a Spanish journalist specialized in tabloids.


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Inicios

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Karmele Marchante was born in Tortosa, Tarragona (Catalonia), daughter of the colonel of infantry Carlos Marchante Alonso (1910-2000) and Carmen Barrobés Llatge (deceased on the April 10, 2005), who came from a wealthy family from Barcelona, and had been part of Auxilio Social (A humanitarian organization of the fascist party FET during Francisco Franco's dictatorship). She had two siblings, Carlos and María del Rosario (Charito).

She studied in the University of Navarra and in the Offical Journalism School of Barcelona. In 1981, along with María Rodríguez Bayraguet, she translated Ayatollah Khomeini's book Political, philosophical, social and religious principles. She started working as a journalist in print media both in Barcelona and Madrid, in UNESCO and as a correspondent in many countries. She soon jumped to the small screen, where she became a well-known personality in Spain. Her first experiences in television were in information spaces, like TVE's Informe Semanal. She was also the director of Star magazine (a Spanish comic magazine) during its last years, which once featured Michael Jackson in 1984. This magazine is one of the pioneers of counterculture in Spain.


Television

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During the 80s she worked for TVE, where she started doing social commentary for the TV show La tarde. Besides collaborating in written press with magazines like Interviú or Época. In 1990 she was the host of a talk show/celebrity show/gossip TV show for Antena 3. In 1993, she started to appear in TVE programs like Pasa la vida, with María Teresa Campos, ¡Hola Raffaella! or La máquina de la verdad with Julián Lago. In 1996 she followed María Teresa Campos to work with her in the TV show Día a día, starting her new stage in Telecinco. During this time she balanced hew appearances on television with her column in the magazine Tiempo.

Tómbola

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Specialized in what is known as tabloid journalism, her popularity rises thanks to Tómbola, a TV show broadcasted by Canal 9 and Telemadrid between 1997 and 2004. It was an innovative format in Spain, where a few journalists -including Karmele Marchante herself- would interrogate the celebrities interviewed about their personal life, often in an aggressive and judgemental way.

This space, along with this form of journalism, was widely denounced by critics and even political parties, due to the show's public funding. However, it had the support of its loyal audience, which kept it seven years on air.