Friday June 30, 2023. Barça TV studios, located since the 2018-2019 season in Sant Just Desvern, very close to the Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper. And from La Masia, where it all begins. In the case of the television channel, where everything ends. For economic reasons the club made the decision to close it after 24 years. Sad and melancholic, some channel workers receive this newspaper dressed in black. It is the slogan for the last day of a television that was born in July 1999 in the final years of the mandate of Josep Lluís Núñez. The then president was looking for a connection that would bring him closer to the partner and that came to an end yesterday. The 94 workers at Barça TV have been aware of the club’s decision since April. There will be those who say that they have had time to get used to the idea. Nobody has achieved it.
“My contract dates from July 15, 1999. It is the oldest on television,” explains Àngels Prieto, a journalist who had few things left to do in what was always his home. “The first emission test was carried out in the last league match at the Camp Nou in the 1998-99 season. A Barça-Betis with Barça and a League champion with Van Gaal. That day they offered the title to the fans. We did a 12-hour program”, explains Àngels. She was the first presenter of the news programs that have accompanied Barcelona fans for 24 years. She never changed her name. It was always Barça Notícies. BN for workers.
Two days later, Sonia de Alba signed the second contract in the channel’s history. “Sort y èxits” she always tells every editor who steps on the newsroom. “The first thing I did was a report on FCB Botiga. On July 27, everything started,” explains De Alba, a journalist who is passionate about the club’s sections, especially basketball, who stays close to former coach and former player Aíto García Reneses and Pau Gasol. “They helped me a lot. You would meet them every day simply by crossing the ice rink, ”she explains, recalling the time when the channel was located at the Camp Nou. “I remember that we started editing in facilities that were next to TV3 because at the Camp Nou they were breaking down walls. At the end of June 1999 we settled in some temporary modules. You did not understand how in 10 days it could be issued. But it happened, ”she recalls.
Anecdotes fall out of Àngels’ pockets. “My first trip to the Champions League was in 2000 against Sparta Prague. When we returned I couldn’t find my passport. I got hysterical. I turned around and Kluivert was laughing. He had opened my backpack and taken it from me. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship”, explains the presenter. “I have done everything. I even broadcast a game that Barça C was playing against Lorca because the narrator failed. I asked them to put the locution in Catalan to guide me because I didn’t know anyone, ”she recounts.
The Catalan voiceover was that of David Puig, known as Maestro Puig for his ancestry and ability to teach since July 20, 1999. His voice has been the one that has accompanied viewers in thousands of stories. “He was 34 years old. He was the oldest of all. He came from being director of Radio Sant Feliu. The beginnings were hard. We do not rest for a month, ”he recalls. “I have done everything. Boss, editor, broadcaster, editor… But I remember above all the 2009 Champions League in Rome that we beat Manchester United. I narrated it from there with Òscar Garcia Junyent as a commentator. And to think that it all started because my mother went to Josep Pons’ hairdresser’s… He was a good friend of Domènec Garcia, Núñez’s press officer. He told my mother that they were looking for people, to send the resume. I passed several tests and got in, ”he recalls.
Six months later Jaume Marcet landed. The voice of the Masia. He called him another history of the channel such as Chus Carrillo. “I think that thanks to Barça TV, people have discovered that football goes beyond the first team and the reserves”, he says. His beginnings were with Àngels Prieto in Tot Barça, a program dedicated to grassroots football and the seed of the well-known Promises, which began to be broadcast every Tuesday from March 2004 until last year. “The first game I narrated was that of a Cadet A by a certain Andrés Iniesta,” says Marcet.
And Messi? “Messi plays in Argentina thanks to Barça TV. His representative at the time, Horacio Gaggioli, asked me to make a summary with his images and they sent them. Obviously he summoned him ”, says Jaume. Next to him sit journalists who have lived a life in the blaugrana, such as Laura Aparicio, journalist, presenter of news and club events; Miriam Nadal, the institutional voice of the entity, the presenter of the previous and post-match games Mario Robert or the editor Meritxell Infante. Others have been there for less time, such as Carla Garcia, voice of the women’s, Marc Brau, of the men’s, or Pol Martínez, who presented the penultimate newscast at 3:00 p.m. Always thanks to the help of television cameras, technicians and councilors.
The one at 8 pm with Llorenç Tarrés was the last newscast. To close the channel, shortly before midnight, its workers prepared a 5-minute report to say goodbye. Later, Barça TV faded to black.
