The Audiovisual Council of Catalonia (CAC) detects “deficiencies and a lack of concreteness” in the program contract between the Generalitat and the Catalan Corporation for Audiovisual Media (CCMA), as stated in the mandatory and non-binding report unanimously approved by the five members of the Council at the beginning of February.
In this report on the content of the programmatic agreement that will involve a public contribution of 1,347 million in the CCMA spread over four years from 2024 to 2027, the CAC highlights that the commitments that the CCMA will achieve, more than specific objectives or actions from which the fulfillment of public service missions will be carried out, “are in reality mere principles or criteria of a generic nature, difficult to be understood as specific commitments or objectives, verifiable from the point of view of their fulfillment.”
The CAC warns that there is “no apparent line of continuity” between the general public service missions that correspond to the CCMA and the terms in which these missions are pronounced “in the form of obligations.” The report complains that “no effort is made to achieve specific objectives or activities of a benefit nature.”
At this point, the CAC recalls that “the legislator has provided in a detailed and explicit manner for the establishment of public service objectives” and that is why it requests that “it would be advisable to amend” a whole series of deficiencies and inconcretions that are reiterated throughout Of the report.
Thus, it is stated that, in the provision of the content offer, the CCMA says that “it will take advantage of the potential offered by the multiple forms of existing audiovisual communication and those that may be developed during the period of validity of the program contract” but it is not stated. nowhere does it specify “through which means this offer is being made or in which it is planned to be made.”
For example, the transmission capacity of Digital Terrestrial Television that it allocates to the programming offer is not specified, through which portals and device applications it offers its content or what agreements may eventually be made to disseminate this content. through cable platforms, IPTV and other content aggregation and distribution systems.
The CAC also misses a greater development of other provisions, such as those contained in the clause dedicated to the production of content, among which, the promotion of its own production, which is only pronounced in the following terms: “The CCMA will promote the own production of programs for its audiovisual services.” Along these lines, “it is not explained either, and we understand that it is relevant for the purposes of assessing the correct size of the staff, to know by virtue of which criteria content production orders will be carried out to third parties.”
The CAC reminds that budget contributions must be carried out in a “transparent and proportionate” manner. The requirement for transparency translates into “the need for the program contract to include details of the origin and amounts of income derived from activities other than those that are strictly public service.” And with respect to proportionality, in “verifying that this justification is derived from the program contract, through an adequate (and sufficient) specification and definition of the activities and public service objectives that will be carried out.”
The CAC also points out that the 2024-2027 budget scenario designed in the proposal “is merely illustrative.” Firstly, it includes the budget allocation of the Generalitat; Secondly, it adds an item that globally covers the obtaining of own income, without further detail. “The criteria for managing advertising and own income do not define what the advertising sales strategy will be or what sources of own income other than those derived from advertising activity the proposal would be referring to.”
The CAC report, which also detects that in the entire program contract there is no reference to the radio sector, ends by stating that its members value “very positively” the fact that the CCMA has contributed, eighteen years after the last one was sent approved program contract, a new proposal for the period 2024-2027, but insists on these shortcomings and lack of specificity “which make it difficult to develop verifiable and useful indicators.”
Sources consulted at the CCMA assure that they respect the content of the CAC report but that the corporation emphasizes “that for the first time, a joint commission will evaluate the deployment of the Strategic Plan” such as the deployment of the 3Cat platform and the new platform. for young people EVA, leadership in the children’s field through the SX3 or the commitment to fiction and entertainment programs.
