Far from ending, RTVE continues lurching in a crisis whose end does not seem to be dazzled for years. This Monday a new chapter opens: Jose Manuel Perez Turnerpresident of the corporation, announced his resignation after a year and a half in office.
The reasons for his resignation, set out in a letter, lay, according to him, in the lack of consensus and pluralism necessary for his project of profound renovation of public radio and television. As he writes:
“In summary, we have made considerable progress, I think it can be demonstrated with data and, however, I insist: I think the circumstances are no longer there to continue advancing. Because I have verified that, within the highest administrative body of RTVE —and despite the strenuous efforts made by some of its components— the minimum conditions for cross-sector consensus no longer exist, nor for the formation of a plural, stable and consistent; and, on many occasions, not even the climate conducive to the dialogue that we need to complete the project. This makes the governability of the company very difficult, and prevents carrying out the transformation to which we had all committed ourselves.»
Or, in other words, you have lost the faith (and support) of the Board of Directors of RTVE. Without this support, propitiated by the classic politicking of one and the other, Tornero’s proposals remained in vain, making it impossible for them to prosper.
The body was made up of three councilors proposed by the PSOE, three by the PP, two by United We Can and one by the PNV, elected in March 2021. Of these, Tornero was the “independent”, chosen by consensus. He is one of the PSOE, Elena Sánchez Caballero, who acts as the new president of RTVEas reported by the corporation on Tuesday night.
A management that promised to be resolved based on patches and the usual vices
Tornero’s resignation comes after a week that closed with the news that the president had made an unprecedented increase in directors, with 196 command posts according to El Mundo. Something that represented the straw that broke the camel’s back in a long restructuring of the controversial public entity from the beginning.
Upon arrival, Turner proposed to radically change public broadcasting and, in fact, proposals such as “The Great Consultation” with a macro survey throughout the Spanish territory, seemed to point in that direction as patches were applied to try to correct things.
However, we soon saw that, far from what was promised, few things were really changing. In fact, perennial subjects such as the depoliticization of such vital departments as News did not seem to be a priority in the face of a management in which everything has gone downhill without brakes.
Moreover, they happened interference, controversial appointments (including the cause of “Black Fridays”) and there were cases such as the accusation of not allowing journalists to travel to Western Sahara that greatly tensed the atmosphere and caused the resignation of the international chiefs. Also issues cHow to outsource current affairs programs It has given more than one headache.
The deterioration of the TVE brand for much ‘MasterChef’, ‘Cuéntame’ and football that there is
And as for Content, there it has not enjoyed much approval either, with a TVE that was strongly betting on big events and, of course, football with accusations of outbidding for the rights of the next World Cup in Qatar 2022. It is not the only event football that the corporation has scheduled: Eurocopa 2024, the feminine of 2025, the UEFA Nations League, etc.
A disbursement for which the entity has not disclosed specific figures (it is estimated that at least 35 million euros for the World Cup) with which TVE wants to save a bit of furniture in terms of audiences at a time when it is at historic lows and these movements are very bread for today, hunger for tomorrow.
And in this sense, what, of course, leaves Tornero It is an unattractive scenario for the viewer, which sees a programming La 1 more or less stagnant no matter how many ‘Mapi’s we put. In fact, within the season preview, the most notable thing for immediate prime time is ‘Incredible Duos’, the program presented by Juan y Medio.
Things are not looking good for the own fiction department, whose priority has gone into the background and you just have to see how many nights this week we have a series on La 1. Answer: none. Yes, for the afternoon it continues to retain its ‘Serve and protect’ and we have announced ‘Force of Peace’ for “very soon” but beyond ‘Cuéntame’ there are no projects to rebuild the TVE brand.
There also does not seem to have been (and we do not know if there will be) great interest in promoting and investing in big bets on digital content: Playz, for example, went from being a promising experiment for young and new creators to little more than an (interesting, yes) discussion forum.
And the RTVE Play brand is wasted despite all the powerful and interesting content it has and whose originals (such as ‘Ruíz Mateos’, ‘Edelweiss’ or ‘Yrreal’) received minimal promotion despite being very interesting. The disdain on the part of the management leadership for RTVE Play and the RTVE LAB, dedicated to innovation, already caused the resignation of its head, Fran Lorente.
The departure of Pérez Tornero is seen with a ray of hope if only because his successor, Sánchez Caballero, has the opportunity to straighten the fateful course that Radio Televisión Española is headed for. It is not going to be easy because we are dealing with mud with years and years of training and, as we have already seen in this year and a half, It takes more than football, Eurovision and MasterChef every week of the year to fix everything.