Contradictions in the digitalization of the structure of the Spanish public radio and television (RTVE): between the subsidiaries and the promotion of territorial cohesion

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to study the regional structure of the Spanish Public Broadcasting Corporation (Radio Televisión Española, RTVE for short), a largely unresearched subject. The RTVE structure is comprised of various radio and television centers, but this research will be limited to the local production centers of TVE (Spanish public television). These centers were set up in the final years of the Franco dictatorship, but their objectives were not defined until the Radio and Television Act of 1980 was passed. The entire broadcast network was created during the decade of the 1980s, so that by 1989 all the provincial capitals of the Spanish Autonomous Regions had a regional TVE center with capacity to produce news and local content for the regional news or to meet the needs of national programming. During the 1990s, the increase in the number of regional channels and the hesitant decentralization of the private television channels caused RTVE to raise serious questions about the regional system’s necessity and functions. These doubts did not disappear until the Spanish parliament approved the Public Radio and Television Act (17/2006) and later the Framework Agreement (Mandato Marco, December 2007). Although the regional system’s existence was guaranteed, a number of major contradictions have arisen which impact on the model of local television represented by territorial centres of the new SME TVE. These contradictions are especially evident in the digitalization process of the centers and in the lack of preparation for the “analogical blackout” in April 2010.