Regional governments budget almost 1.2 billion for public TV

At a time when the public coffers are facing budget pressures never seen before, various Spanish regional governments have allocated almost 1.2 billion euros to financing public television stations for the 2012 fiscal year. This is practically half of what they budgeted last year. In regards to government subsidies, the ?profound? cutback that regional governments announced was 11.5%, hardly 120 million euros less than in 2011. This cutback challenges the 10 billion euros in cuts announced by Health and Education and 204 million for RTVE, Spain?s national television station.

Seventy percent of public media revenues come directly from state subsidies while another twenty percent come from advertising, an industry that has seen better days. In 2011 advertising revenues plunged 27%. Regional television stations earned just 198 million in advertising revenues last year, which was 70 million less than they had budgeted for. Falling advertising revenues have a direct effect on regional television station deficits. The stations are in the red and far from balancing their budgets as mandated by the national government last Friday. According to a report by Deloitte, the 13 regional television stations closed 2010 with 326 million in losses.

In regard to 2012, the regional governments anticipated in their budgets that advertising revenues are going to fall 11% to 233 million euros, a figure that is not adjusted to reality given that in the first three months of the year advertisements fell 20%. Public funding, the most significant part worth some 944 million euros, has also been cut by 11.5% collectively. Some regions such as Castilla-La Mancha or Asturias have extended their 2011 budgets due to lack of agreement in their parliaments. For its part, Telemadrid is keeping its 78.86 million subsidies intact, because it did not negotiate a change to its programming contract.