The RTVE crisis and the botched public tender

The RTVE corporation lives its own television soap opera. In the last month, the leadership of the corporation has launched accusations of treason, mutiny and disloyalty. There have been unexpected dismissals, sudden dismissals and irrevocable resignations. The result is a company mired in an institutional blockage, difficult to govern and with a board of directors that acts like a miniature Parliament. A climate of “collective depression” reigns at RTVE, as described by a senior member of the group. The trigger for this vaudevillian spectacle has been the attempt (at the moment failed) to push forward in the council the signing of comedian David Broncano, host of the Movistar+ program The resistance.

This project has unleashed a very tough confrontation at the top of the corporation, which has taken out the interim president, Elena Sánchez (replaced with a mandate of just six months by Concepción Cascajosa); to the content director, José Pablo López; and the secretary general, Alfonso Morales. The internal battle being waged in Prado del Rey has turned its attention to the model followed to appoint the governance bodies of the public entity. Ciudadanos and Unidas Podemos advocated a novel formula: a public contest. The idea had already been put into practice in the United Kingdom in 2004, when the British Government wanted to fill the position of president of the BBC. He published an advertisement in the press and although at first many thought it was a joke, 79 candidates presented themselves.

Imported model

Spain imported this model to select the president of RTVE and, incidentally, also the members of the board of directors. 94 candidates attended, a high percentage of which were house workers (many active and others already retired) who appeared in Congress and the Senate. One of the participants in that contest admits that “Parliament cheated the loner. He tried to give the appearance of a clean and professional process and in the end it was seen that this was a mere staging.” In view of the results, the idea is widespread that the initiative turned out to be a botch.

The current board of directors was the result of the agreement reached at the beginning of 2021 by PSOE, PP, Unidas Podemos and PNV, which shared the 10 positions in the running. The socialists proposed José Manuel Pérez Tornero (who held the presidency) Ramón Colom, Elena Sánchez and Concepción Cascajosa; the PP endorsed Jenaro Castro, Carmen Sastre and Consuelo Aparicio; Unidas Podemos selected Roberto Lakidain and José Manuel Martín Medem, and the PNV appointed Juan José Baños. Both the CVs and the management projects of the applicants were evaluated by a committee of experts appointed by the Cortes, which after careful screening established a list of the 20 candidates who had the highest qualifications. They were considered “suitable” to be appointed members of the council.

From that list, the parliamentary groups only chose three: Pérez Tornero, Sastre and Lakidain. The rest were chosen based on political affinities, ignoring professional criteria and management capacity. The list of preselected candidates fell on deaf ears due to a wave of resources and because it included many more men (they applied in greater numbers) than women, which prevented an equal council. The professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona Isabel Fernández Alonso was part of the committee of experts that evaluated the files. She remembers that there were four candidates on the first list, but the death of the first classified, Alicia Gómez Montano, deepened the imbalance. “I always said that you couldn't give someone more points for being a woman,” she says. She also has no doubt that the contest “was poorly designed from the beginning; “It had flaws and gaps.”

One of the most egregious blunders was the publication of the scales after the candidates had submitted their documentation. Furthermore, priority was given to being a journalist, to the detriment of other professions such as lawyers, economists or engineers. “To many of us, they did not seem like the most appropriate criteria, but when they are established, they must be met. It is contradictory to call a competition and then make it impossible. The feeling is that we were wasting time for five months,” laments Fernández Alonso. He considers that ideological polarization has been transferred to the RTVE board and that political confrontations have ended up running aground in the functioning of the institution.

Ciudadanos, the party that had most vehemently opted for the format, did not participate in the pact to appoint the council. He alleged that the Government and the PP had ignored the committee of experts to “distribute the positions as if they were trading cards” and decided not to participate in the parliamentary votes. “The contest was intended to choose the best, not the best friends,” Albert Rivera's party warned.

Failed innovation

For the professor of Journalism at the University of Malaga Manuel Chaparro, the innovative initiative to appoint the leadership of RTVE was a failure. “They played with people who had trusted in a system that little by little became adulterated. For the participants, the process was a real fraud. “Many people presented interesting projects and in the end felt scammed.” Chaparro maintains that the model could have worked if the parties had had “democratic stature” and believes that the main problem was that the rules were not respected or the commitments to elect the most qualified were not fulfilled. At RTVE they defend that the Parliament has the last word (“that's what democracy is”) but they perceive that the politicians put their own interest first, since in the end “they appointed their like-minded people, ignoring professionalism.”

An added factor to the governance crisis at RTVE is that half of the council has expired mandate. The law sets the duration of office at six years and establishes that its members be renewed in halves after three years. This circumstance forced five of its members to be replaced this March. But the lack of agreement between the two major parties, PP and PSOE, keeps the members who should leave their positions in their positions. The names were chosen by lottery and chance wanted the three representatives of the PP to emerge, one from the PSOE (Colom) and one from the PNV. In addition, the position of Pérez Tornero, who resigned in September 2022, is vacant.

To appoint new councilors, the parties will have a free hand. They will no longer be subject to the list of candidates who opted for the contest, according to corporation sources. They will, however, need the support of two-thirds of the Chambers. Government partners hope that this process can be completed before the end of Cascajosa's half-year term. And if they fail to reach a consensus with the PP, they do not rule out resorting to a royal decree law so that the renewal can go ahead, in a second round, only with an absolute majority. “Mariano Rajoy did it,” they warn.

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