The outsourcing of the production of the public television operators of autonomic scope in Spain. The Canarian and Extremaduran cases

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to systematize some data on a new phenomenon that has been observed in the Spanish panorama of autonomous public televisions since 1998: the so-called outsourcing of production, which involves the implementation of a new content management model, in the which is awarded to a production company, by means of a competition, the elaboration of all, almost all or part of the programming. It is evident that the key to the novelty is in the announcement of the contest, since public televisions have always commissioned or bought part of the contents of their grills. We will analyze in some detail the Canarian and Extremaduran cases, in which we understand that it is possible to speak of “private management of the programming” since the development of most of it (Canary Islands) or all of it (Extremadura) has been awarded to an agent external to the Autonomous Administration. However, we must clarify from the outset that both assumptions differ in an essential fact: while in the Canary Islands the Board of Directors of public radio television retains control of the programming produced by the production company awarded the concession, in Extremadura there is no It has managed to launch the autonomous public television and what has been done is to award an external production company the development of a program that is being broadcast from Andalusia. We will see that in front of this approach (private management of the programming) an alternative is envisaged that until now has only received the approval in the Parliament of Catalonia, although it has also been raised in Valencia: it would be about, not awarding programming to the same company and for several years, but to different actors and on an annual basis, following the approval of budgets. But before going into the specific object of the article, we are going to briefly recall the situation of the autonomous public television operators in Spain.