The government will allocate 530 million euros to Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE) by 2023. This is 19% more than what it injected last year (445 million) and the highest figure since 2011, when the budget amounted to 548 million, according to the draft General State Budget.
Most of this amount, 490 million, is a state contribution, a tenth more than the previous year, while the remaining 40 million come from European funding programmes.
Moncloa is increasing its allocation at a time of financial and reputational crisis for the Corporation. Financial, due to its high level of debt, which amounts to 691 million euros; reputational, due to the internal rift that has worsened following the resignation of the president of the broadcaster José Manuel Pérez Tornero, justifying the unviability of his project due to a lack of consensus, and the subsequent appointment of Elena Sánchez as interim president, granting her executive powers through a modification of RTVE’s statutes under the legal route of the royal decree approved this week.
The government’s unusual formula has outraged members of the board of directors, trade unions and the three news councils, among others. The latter bodies have denounced in a statement today that this approach “sets a very dangerous precedent that we must refuse in defence of our public service”.
