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Updated Wednesday, April 3, 2024-00:41

The signing of comedian

David Broncano

for Televisión Española (TVE), in addition to returning to the foreground the perennial absence of a stable public television model, presents the presenter with the dilemma of continuing to be an entertainment icon or

submitting to interests that have nothing to do with see with humor.

The intense pressure exerted by Moncloa so that

La Resistencia

- a program with notable penetration among young people - ends up on La 1 with the aim of acting as a counterweight to

El Horm

iguero

from Antena 3 seeks to position the figure of Broncano against half of Spanish society. No other conclusion can be drawn taking into account

the undisguised interest of the Government

in an operation that, if consummated in the RTVE Board of Directors convened for tomorrow, would mean that Broncano himself would accept to signify himself ideologically. He has time to avoid the political exploitation of his figure, which would drag the network into a struggle foreign to its vocation of public service. Broncano would be locked in a golden cage at the expense of the public treasury.

Broncano's move to Spanish Television blew up the leadership of RTVE last week, causing the dismissal of Elena Sánchez and José Pablo López, former numbers one and two, respectively. Now the management must decide whether or not to validate the unusual contract agreed between the Public Corporation and Broncano and the production company El Terrat. Among other

draconian conditions

s, the agreement contemplates a reduction in the time established for the

Newscast

-thus eroding the informative commitment of the public channel- and the acceptance of a clause, which means that, regardless of the audience, the program will remain in prime time during that time. In addition to the agreed amount - more than 14 million per season - the agreement would be for two years, of which in 18 months it could not be cancelled. It is unheard of for TVE to tie its hands and feet like this. And let him do it

further piercing its battered financial situation

in order to compete with a private television, not through a solid information offer, but with a space that goes beyond its public nature.

The desire to control RTVE, converted into an apparatus at the service of political power, cannot be dissociated from the media battle waged by the Government, whose greatest exponent is the belligerence exhibited by the Minister of Transport

Oscar Puente

, after making public a list of columns critical of his figure. Instead of assuming the work of the free press, whose function is inherent to the plurality that governs any democratic and open society,

The Executive engages in an inadmissible accusation.

The guarantee of the right to information requires respecting the work of all media and preserving public radio and television from partisan interference.

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