It's perhaps strange to see ABC newspaper being overly critical of anything Partido Popular, but a couple of days ago they came out against the obvious political bias (and general brainlessness) of the Spanish state's broadcasting network, RTVE, in no uncertain terms. The following translation of the original ABC editorial is from BBC Worldwide Monitoring:

"The crisis of Spanish state television does not simply boil down to main channel TVE-1's poor ratings for the month of February, when they dropped to their lowest level - 22.2 per cent of the viewing figures - since records began in 1993, putting it within reach of the private channels. The figures, in any case, are a symptom of the body's general state, which is perpetuated by the frustration of failing to consolidate itself as a well-managed and well-run example of public media, in both economic and professional terms, which is especially serious in a channel which can count on a qualified workforce. The role of state television in a democratic society is to guarantee quality media for citizens, capable of combining, with the aim of satisfying general interest, the demands for news, leisure, entertainment and culture. How to do it is a responsibility which falls to those in charge of running it, who have a duty to provide a better and more dignified response than what Spanish society is currently being offered. A response which cannot be created without professional rigour or a vocation to serve the public."

And on it goes:

"An essential aspect of the crisis in which RTVE is immersed is down to its news policy, which is burdened by serious reproaches for bias and which has even provoked unprecedented judicial resolutions, such as that derived from the coverage of the general strike on 15 July 2002. Equally serious is the vulgar display of dependency on certain private interests which the body shows, as well as the content of certain "star programmes", less profitable for its own coffers than for others which are apparently unconnected..."

I don't find myself agreeing with ABC too often, but it's all true. I rarely watch La Primera, but I was surprised tonight to sit down with my baby son, Marco, on my knee to find myself watching 1-2-3 - a revival of the old 70's programme which, like Eurovision, I'd foolishly thought belonged to a bygone, pre-democratic time. The audience, rows and rows of them, sat in knitted woollen sweaters in various shocking tones and all applauded at precisely the same moment, and laughed at jokes which were threadbare even when 1-2-3 was first shown. It wasn't too long before Marco started crying. RTVE treats its audiences as idiots, and seems to believe that its mandate is to foment further idiocy in the nation, to get it to unlearn the democratic values it's spent the last couple of decades struggling to absorb. All debate has vanished from its prime-time news programmes. Even RTVE's recent showcase series, an ambitious history of Spain from its origins called Memoria de España, rarely rises, from the brief extracts I've seen, above the level of an educational, made-for-school history video. (Fernando García de Cortázar, the historian leading the series' research team, is also a known PP sympathizer, whose nomination provoked predictable howls of protest from the opposition parties.) If poor ratings are RTVE's reward, then fine, since it's the only logic it will understand. By switching it off in large numbers, Spanish people might one day get the kind of state TV channel they deserve - though some would say that by voting the PP in, as they look increasingly likely to again on March 14th, they've already got the TV channel they deserve.
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