Three weeks were enough to see that "El Pueblo Más Divertido" ("The Funnest Town"), a new public television series this summer, is a fiasco that has costs Spanish taxpayers 3.5 million euros. How much longer before the government realizes that the old RTVE model is broken?
Facing possible closures of Teledeporte makes the debate on privatization even more urgent. The company is losing viewers and spending incredible amounts of money as Spanish taxpayers are being asked to tighten their belts. In addition to the economic factors (RTVE is expected to lose 130 million in 2014), there is an opaque political slant, too, which can't be ignored. Government?s cannot afford to maintain public television stations as a tool to spread their ideology. The problem exist at the local and regional government level. For their part, the regions have spent 7.6 billion euros on public television stations since the crisis began, but only Canal Nou has closed.
This is a clear sign that we still need strong measures and sweeping decisions in order to restructure how stations like RTVE work,especially if they cannot keep viewers watching on the taxpayer's bill. It makes no sense that political powers can continue to pump money into these stations instead of cutting off the funds and demanding that RTVE make significant budget cutbacks.
