Scenarios and challenges of public television in Spain

Abstract

Spanish Public Service Television faces the challenge to adapt and to adjust to the current expansion and consolidation of the global digital media. At the moment, RTVE lacks of stable solutions to the contradictions of editorial control, financial management, content and corporate governance, which makes difficult to establish the vision, the mission and the strategies to follow up.

The modernization of the legal system, the autonomy of the newsroom and the excellent management of the digital channels are positive developments. However, the main policies maintain the given situation before these positive changes. Why? They do not appear linked in a common. Funding remains a thorny issue. The freedom that promotes the European Commission in the  definition of public service broadcasting degenerates, in the Spanish case, in the uncertainty about the content and means of payment. The new audiovisual authority is called to lead these issues and establish parameters homogeneous in the European environment.

The Spanish Government starts a new project that will have to lay the groundwork for the mission, the dynamics and scope of RTVE and, by extension, regional operators. Now is the time to think about where we want to steer public television in the next ten years.