The launch by RTVE of a new channel that will be broadcast exclusively in Catalan will cause a new hole of around 18 million euros in the maltrechas of the corporation, which accumulates a liability of 430 million euros … and that, according to the recent report of an audit, it would have an accumulated debt with the Treasury of 739 million euros. A critical situation that if justice does not prove the right to exceed the cause of dissolution that marks the Capital Companies Law.
And it is in the midst of that landscape where the new adventure is born that starts from the demands of Junts to have a television in Catalan funded by the State and becomes a reality by the parliamentary weakness of the Government, forced to meet those of Carles Puigdemont to keep Pedro Sánchez in the Moncloa. The absence of General State Budgets has especially hit RTVE, whose income is clearly insufficient to deal with the expenses contracted in recent years and hence the new direction of the public entity is maneuvering to achieve extra funds that could come from the SEPI in the coming weeks. In any case, the launch of the new Catalan channel – which will begin to be broadcast in autumn as ABC said on Tuesday – has not stopped waiting to clarify the economic landscape, on the contrary.
Although their appointments are not yet official as responsible for the chain that will be released after summer, Oriol Nolis and Laura Folguera already work fully on the project, trying to lay the bases of the grill whose content must be produced largely outside Sant Cugat due to the lack of means. An outsourcing that the most optimistic voices place 40% and that the most realistic states that it will reach more than 50%. “Right now the workers of the center of Catalonia are already saturated and will not be able to assume this new load without help,” explain internal sources of the corporation.
With that panorama, folguera – which will be number two of the organization chart – is already holding meetings with different producers of the separatist scope, which are the ones that together expects to take most of the cake to be distributed. A total of 10-11 million euros in external productions, according to the forecast they make for ABC sources of the Corporation, which will go to around 18 if the dubbing and emission expenses are taken into account.
Nolis, who will be the director of the new channel, knows well the content producers of Catalonia, since between 2021 and 2023 RTVE directed in that autonomous community. Under his mandate, the public entity hired programs with companies in the field of philoconvergent and independence, which are those that have now started to call themselves at their door to try to get a hole in the future grill.
In addition to Nolis and Folguera, there is another figure that is being key in the first steps of the new channel, which is Miquel Calçada, the counselor that Junts placed in the Board of Directors of RTVE and that is being responsible for exercising as entrance door for many of these audiovisual companies whose owners have ties with independence. “It’s like an ambassador for these producers,” they explain to ABC from Prado del Rey.
In Catalonia, at the Sant Cugat production center, the situation is seen with concern. The 800 workers that RTVE has contracted there barely cover the current production of programs such as ‘Know and Win’, ’59 seconds ‘, Late Xou’ or ‘Culture 2’, in addition to remotety and emissions for Catalan disconnection such as ‘Café d’Edees’, ‘Noms propis’ or territorial news. The overload, denounced by the unions, is such that the reinforcement of cameras, sound and luminotechnics is usual when the recording of several of these programs coincides.
Even so, sources from the RTVE Directorate believe that it will be possible to make adjustments to be able to cover at least 60% of the production of the new channel, which would avoid a greater cost for the coffers of the corporation. Currently, the center of Sant Cugat has six technical teams to which it is expected to add one more in the coming weeks.
Council meeting
José Pablo López, director of RTVE, must appear this Thursday at the Mixed Control Commission of the Cortes, in which several of the groups will ask him about the launch of this new channel. An issue that López himself will also address internally next Friday, during the ordinary board of directors.
Several of the directors consulted by ABC are unaware of the details of this operation that has been blessed by Moncloa and that is part of the agreement sealed by the Government with Junts for the reorganization that took place in October and that RTVE has put at the service of the Executive, stripping the council of the functions that it had so far and giving most of the contracting powers to José Pablo López, through which all decisions pass through.
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