RTVE admits it is “undeniable that there is a problem with the audience in television and radio”.
The audience crisis that Radiotelevisión Española has been suffering in recent months is one of the main weaknesses that most worries the public corporation. So much so, in fact, that the top management is no longer shaking in its boots when it comes to recognising this weakness in a clear and public way. RTVE’s Director of General Contents, José Pablo López – who has held the post since May this year – admitted to the viewer’s ombudsman, María Escario, on the programme RTVE Responde, broadcast yesterday on La 2, that “it is undeniable that there is a problem with the audience in television and radio”.
The head of content said that “we have to be clear about where we want to take the content, because if we are not clear about that point of arrival, we can probably get anywhere unrelated to our public service function”. López pointed out that defining this path “is a job that corresponds to all broadcasting professionals”.
In August, La 1 registered an audience share of 8.9%, the lowest figure it has ever recorded, below the pay channels and the regional channels – both together – and increasingly distancing itself from the figures obtained by Antena 3 and Telecinco, which capture around 13% of viewers. The TVE director’s reading of the situation is that this drop is occurring in a transitory period. López argues that “we are in a moment of transition between the schedule we had until the summer and the schedule and programmes we want to launch from the end of the year and the beginning of January”.
One of the most important television bets for the coming months is the broadcasting of the Qatar World Cup, which will feature Iker Casillas as commentator. This is further proof that RTVE’s line to combat low audience figures is based, to a large extent, on a strategy of offering relevant sports broadcasts, with guaranteed, albeit occasional, successes.
The plan to reactivate the low audience levels in the coming months also includes the premieres of new programmes such as: a fiction series entitled Cuatro estrellas, produced by Dani Écija (Águila Roja, El internado, Aída, Médico de familia and Periodistas), which is expected in January, a Latin soap opera in the afternoon programmes which, according to López, “are in great demand”, and the extension of the length of the programme Aquí la tierra.
In addition, last Friday the radio programme Versió RAC1 reported that RTVE could be considering recovering the programme Pekín Express, produced by Boomerang TV, for La 1. A reality show that, according to Grupo Godó’s broadcaster, would entail a high economic cost due to the fact that it is recorded in several countries and must first be approved by the Board of Directors. This media outlet has contacted sources on the board of directors and they admit that they are not yet aware, at least for the moment, that they have to officially address this point. If approved, La 1 would be the fourth channel to offer this programme, after Cuatro, Antena 3 and La Sexta.
La 2, “the jewel in the crown” next to RTVE Play
The serious drop in viewers on La 1 contrasts sharply with La 2, RTVE’s biggest attraction today, after obtaining its best figures of the last 12 years in August. The broadcaster’s Content Director describes it as “the jewel in the crown. A channel made with love, followed by a large part of the audience”. The season has new features such as the cultural news programme, Culturas2, presented by Paula Sainz-Pardo, and the music programme Groenlandia, which will be launched in January.
López relates this peak in La 2’s audience to the success that, in his opinion, RTVE Play is enjoying. “La 2 is doing the same as RTVE Play,” he says. However, according to the director, this content platform has two unresolved issues. On the one hand, he points out that “we still haven’t conceived it as an independent medium, with editorial independence, so to speak, with respect to the linear channels”. He acknowledges that “we are at a time when investment has focused on linear channels such as La 1 or La 2″.
On the other hand, López points out that “the main consumption of RTVE Play comes from content that has been broadcast previously, or simultaneously on the linear channels”, and he advocates changing this concept “as the large European public corporations such as RAI, BBC or the French broadcaster have done, and in line with the private sector in our country”.
The changes at RNE: “I hope they will bear fruit in the medium term”
In addition to the concern about La 1’s audience crisis, Radio Nacional de España, according to the latest General Media Study, has fallen below the threshold of one million listeners. To remedy this progressive fall, the management has opted for changes in programming such as: the star signing of the Catalan journalist Josep Cuní to present weekday nights and the return of the veteran voice Pepa Fernández at weekends.
López hopes that this change “will bear fruit in the medium term” and believes that “radio is not a set of programmes that make up a grid, it is a spirit that we have to transmit to RNE’s workers so that they get involved and truly believe that public radio can recover the position and ground it has lost”.
