An obituary for the talk show host who rose from street vendor to one of the richest men in the country.
“I worry when the critics praise a show of mine. Then it’s guaranteed to be a flop”: Silvio Santos at a performance in Rio de Janeiro, February 2001.
Paulo Whitaker / Reuters
Silvio Santos’ career as a talk show host and later media mogul in Brazil almost came to an end before it had even begun. As a boy, Santos earned his money as a street vendor in the center of Rio de Janeiro. At that time, the son of immigrant Sephardic Jews from Turkey and Greece was still called Senor Abravanel. He lived with his five siblings in Lapa, the city’s bohemian and prostitute district at the time, and showed a talent for sales as a 14-year-old.
«I’ll do anything for money»
When he was stopped by the tax authorities again, the official recommended that he apply to be a radio announcer with his sonorous voice. That was in 1948. Mr. Abravanel beat out 300 other applicants, got a contract with the renowned Radio Guanabara as a minor, took the stage name Silvio Santos – and quit after a month. He earned a third more on the street than on the radio. It’s no wonder that his biography is named after one of his well-known shows: “Topa Tudo por Dinheiro” (“I’ll do anything for money”).
Later, in São Paulo, he started working in radio and then switched to television, which was just beginning in Brazil. For 60 years, Silvio Santos hosted his Sunday afternoon show, the “Programa Silvio Santos”. Like no other show host, he entertained and influenced several generations of Brazilians. When he began his show on June 2, 1962, there were only 70 million Brazilians, very few of whom owned a television. But Santos remained popular, even among the now 210 million Brazilians, who are among the most intensive smartphone users in the world.
He quickly realised that São Paulo would become the country’s economic capital and that Rio would lose importance after the construction of the capital, Brasilia. He built a media empire in São Paulo around his show, the Sistema Brasileiro de Televisão. It made him one of the richest Brazilians for a time.
Unlike the Globo broadcaster, which stayed in Rio, where the family of owner Roberto Marinho took their cues from American media companies and became world famous with their telenovelas, Santos remained a salesman until the end of his life. “Globo is the big, modern supermarket,” said Santos. “I am the corner shop.”
Appearances in a gecko outfit and financial scandals
Poor Brazilians identified with Santos. He did not come from the middle class, he had worked his way up from the bottom. Many Brazilians dream of that. There is hardly any social envy. Those who have made it to the top like Santos show their success and are admired. In his shows, Santos flew paper airplanes made of folded banknotes into the predominantly female audience.
The way he flaunted his wealth was comparable to Donald Trump. His toupee, his numerous cosmetic surgeries, his stage appearances in a gecko outfit were always kitschy, emotional, cheap. With Santos, too, no one knew exactly what his empire was really worth. He too was guilty of massive accounting fraud in his own bank, but he was acquitted of these.
But unlike Trump, Santos had none of Trump’s inhumane aggressiveness. He was always in a good mood, with a smile on his face.
He tore up the contract with Endemol for «Big Brother»
The audience didn’t mind that his jokes were often lame and his questions smarmy. Or that he put down guests. Because he didn’t like it when someone was quicker than him. “Silvio was cruel and kind at the same time – but always with a smile,” says media expert Thiago Stivaletti. “He is the greatest symbol of our Brazilian capitalism.”
Even in his old age, he was not afraid to appear on the air in his pajamas if it boosted the ratings. He hosted transvestites long before they became common in Brazilian politics and the media. For Santos, ratings were everything.
“He made a program for an audience that was only marginally literate,” says Stivaletti. Santos defended the quality of his show as follows: “If someone can only answer four out of ten questions on ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’, he switches off. If he can answer all ten questions, he is a hero in front of his wife and children – and he keeps watching my show.”
Santos uninhibitedly copied formats from foreign broadcasters. He abruptly broke off months of negotiations with the Dutch company Endemol about the Brazilian license for the TV show “Big Brother”. He renamed the broadcast format “The House of Artists” – and it was a spectacular success. The fact that his critics panned the shows didn’t bother him: “I worry when the critics praise one of my formats. Then it’s guaranteed to be a flop.”
Santos always combined his talk shows with product marketing, long before it became common practice. Today, no company that wants to promote its products to low-income groups can ignore Silvio Santos’ shows. Decades ago, Santos developed new financing models to present products on his shows that were then sold in his own stores.
He encouraged viewers to pay fixed installments in order to save up for a television, a fan or a refrigerator. The customers of Santos’ empire do not buy a microwave and then pay it off in installments. No, they pay the installments first and receive the product at the end. Why? Because the millions of installment payers and fans can take part in prize draws for houses or cars. “I sell discipline and dreams,” said Santos.
Santos banned criticism of the governments
In his own words, Santos served the government as a “luxurious office messenger” – regardless of who was in power at the time. After all, he had a state concession for his television stations. “You don’t criticize the boss,” he justified himself. “I have instructed the journalists in my company never to criticize, but only to praise the government. If you want to criticize, it is better to remain silent.”
In return, he was generously awarded state broadcasting licenses, especially during the military dictatorship (1964 to 1985). Today, he has 114. In return, he employed relatives of the regime’s most powerful military officers and lured them into his programs with their proximity to the stars. He promoted artists when a general wanted him to. Without the help of João Baptista Figueiredo, the last general of the dictatorship, he would still be selling pens on the street today, Santos explained frankly.
But he also met the left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva regularly, even after the latter was elected president for the third time in 2022. Santos has one thing in common with the up-and-comer from the poor northeast, who worked his way up from starvation refugee to union leader to president: Brazil’s elite and middle class still despise the two up-and-comers to this day.
Lula and Bolsonaro – Santos rolled out the red carpet for everyone
Santos was also well connected with the right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro: his daughter Patrícia is married to the then communications minister of the Bolsonaro government, who is still one of the most important puppet masters in media policy today.
Santos liked to present himself to the public as a family man, with fourteen grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. His six daughters have taken on management positions in the company. What will happen next is unclear. Until now, Santos made decisions alone – based on his gut feeling, and in his own opinion he was right 95 percent of the time. Silvio Santos died on Saturday at the age of 93.
