Spanish public television is preparing a Christmas Eve special for Raphael on 24 December - the night that in every country is reserved for the safest card in the deck. The programme will be built from the songs that defined his career, which is a polite way of saying: nothing new, only what everyone already knows by heart.

The man is 83 and has sold more than 50 million records. He started in the sixties, after winning the Benidorm festival in 1962, and made his television debut with "The Little Drummer Boy". Since then, according to Spanish public television itself, he is the performer who has appeared most often in its history - a history more than six decades long.

This is the year Spanish television turns seventy. So who do you put on Christmas Eve in a year like that? Someone on the way up, or someone whose name is a synonym for the institution itself? The answer writes itself, and it is worth noting how rarely public broadcasters take a risk when they want to celebrate themselves.

In 1975 he hosted his own entertainment show, and for decades afterwards appeared on the New Year and Christmas programmes. In late 2024 he had serious health problems, withdrew, came back and went on tour again. In October, Netflix releases an eight-episode biographical series about his life, including his 1972 marriage to Natalia Figueroa and their three children.

Sixty years on screen, and still the first choice for the most-watched night of the year. That is not just a story about one singer - it is a story about how hard public television finds it to produce successors.