Ignacio Elguero: "If Radio Nacional had funding from the BBC, it would be the BBC"

• Hemeroteca Read all the interviews on the back cover

Ignacio Elguero (Madrid, 1964).

Award-winning journalist, poet, essayist and, surprise, singer (and songwriter) of a pop-rock group.

Since last July he has been the director of Radio Nacional de España (RNE).

Were you happy or disappointed when you were appointed director of Radio Nacional?

The truth is that I was very happy, but I admit that I said to myself: "Ignacio, what are you getting into ...".

Did you not hesitate to accept the position?

I said yes because the experience supported me.

If not, I would not have accepted it, because it was a difficult time.

But having served as program director for five years and as director of RNE 1 for three and a half years with different governments, with different CEOs, I know the house very well.

And knowing the house very well, he knew where the fire was and also where the extinguisher was.

So I did not hesitate.

And I admit that I was excited, since my professional project has been oriented on the one hand towards cultural production but on the other towards management and direction, which is what I like.

Also, it's always nice that they trust you.

Is the fire already paid for?

Yes Yes.

They were internal problems, not overly hard, not overly complex.

But you had to have a left hand to solve them.

Also right hand, but also left hand.

And I am not bad at that.

You are a writer, you have published several books of poetry and also essays.

Is there anything poetic about this house, RNE?

Radio Nacional is very poetic.

This house is divided between informative and programs.

The informative part has very clear objectives: plurality, objectivity, credibility ... But in all the programs part you can develop the most creative side of radio, and I think that can only be done on Radio Nacional de España, on the public radio, because it has all the necessary elements: it has staff, it has highly qualified professionals, it has technology ... It has everything. And are they doing it?

I believe that yes, we are doing it.

One of my goals was to increase the cultural production of the station, and it has been done.

I think that's what really distinguishes Radio Nacional from the other big stations.

Radio Nacional's commitment to culture is unique, it is a constant and no other medium has it.

But those of us who, in addition to being a vocation, have a passion for culture, as is my case, we want to take that bet even further and do more activities that go beyond the programming structure itself: creating sound fictions, creating literary contests, Theatrical contests as we have done, podcast contests for children or schoolchildren, develop conferences like the Covid Days that we have done ... The possibilities of creating educational educational projects have increased a lot with new technologies and with new media, and that to us it benefits us.

And if we also have that vocation and we have a passion for doing it, what more can we ask for.

Does culture give listeners?

We try to combine what is popular culture with elitist culture.

I believe that neither of the two should be abandoned.

There is a more minority, more demanding culture that we deal with as a public service, and there is another popular culture.

There are programs like "The critical eye" and the Pepa Fernández program, for example.

And from that combination comes a product that may interest the general public.

We try to reach as many listeners as possible a material that we consider to be interesting, formative, educational and also entertaining.

What we need is for people to listen to it.

That is the key, let him listen to it.

Many times the word culture is associated with adjectives such as boring, incomprehensible ... And it is not like that.

I have proven that when people approach the program, for example

Documents

RNE greatly enjoys it, gets hooked and is unable to stop listening to it.

The quality in the end ends up curdling.

When something is narrated well, it ends up interesting the listeners.

He says that there are listeners to whom the word culture can be thrown back from the start.

And don't you think that the same thing can also happen with the acronym of RNE, that perhaps there are listeners who consider that, as in the case of Televisión Española, it is a radio at the service of the government of the day? There may be some who think so.

But you only have to turn on the radio to see that it is not.

I have been at Radio Nacional for 24 years and as a manager for 10 years, and I believe that National Radio is linked to the concept of quality.

But I want to go further.

And where do you want to go?

I want RNE to be a reference.

My goal is to turn National Radio into an informative and cultural reference.

There may be some who have stereotypes, and breaking those stereotypes is achieved by offering people an interesting product. Young people are the big unfinished business, right?

We have to be addressing a younger audience.

And we are doing it.

We have created an afternoon program, "Late what it takes," with Julia Varela and a whole team in which no one reaches 40 years of age.

And Radio 3 is in a continuous process of renewal, with Radio 3 Extra, for example.

Will the radio still be heard in 50 years? Yes, I have no doubt.

And I believe that the multiplication of supports helps us, benefits us.

We do not live on support.

We live from what we create, from the content we create.

And as long as the products we create bear the seal of quality, credibility and excellence, we will never stop being there.

On the contrary, what supports do is give us a greater presence.

It is true that we have to adapt, and we have to adapt more quickly.

RNE's listener numbers are bad.

It is far behind Ser, Cope and Onda Cero in audience ... Well, the General Media Study (EGM) has a specific methodology.

It is not that we distrust him, but we have, for example, an audience in rural areas, where less is reached, where less is asked.

I am convinced that we have more audience than the EGM reflects.

I believe in the EGM, but I am convinced that due to the size of the sample, and since we go everywhere, we have more audience than is attributed to us.

That said, the National Radio news programs have to maintain a scheme, some objectives.

We cannot enter into speculation, we cannot venture out, jump into the pool.

Everything we give has to be confirmed.

There are some margins that we cannot cross.

And there are audiences looking for stations without those margins.

Just that, the fact that RNE is a radio with a vocation for balance and correction, without insults or harangues against one or the other, can it take away listeners in a country as ideological as this one in which many listeners tune in to the station that tells them what they want hear?

There are people who like to be given their ears, it is evident and has always happened.

But there are also people who get tired of that and start listening to other things.

And there we are, trying to create an objective, plural and rigorous radio station.

That for the audience also has its risks.

We live in a very polarized society, which somehow punishes the most normalized, balanced or centered positions.

National Radio hardly generates controversy .... We can make mistakes, and it has happened to us at times.

It is logical: we are human, we are journalists and the journalistic nerve sometimes betrays you.

But no, we do not generate controversy.

It could have happened in some very specific and very specific case, but more because of the journalistic nerve than because of the lack of professionalism.

We seek exemplarity.

However, his cousin-sister Televisión Española generates one controversy after another ... What happens is that Televisión Española is more in the eye of the hurricane.

TVE is watched, everyone looks at it with many eyes, all the parties, all the media, it is scrutinized, the magnifying glass is placed on it more than ever.

I think you have to let TVE work and develop its projects without everyone watching it all the time, because that generates nerves and pressure, and nervousness is not good, it is not good to work under pressure.

Was the famous TVE label "Leonor is leaving Spain, like her grandfather" a mistake?

Sure, that label was an obvious mistake.

But I think the manager's reaction was adequate.

Why is National Radio not the BBC?

Well, because we don't have the funding that the BBC has.

I am convinced that if we had the funding that the BBC has, we would be the BBC.

For professionals, for ideas, because we reach the entire Spanish territory, because through foreign radio and our treasure, the Spanish language, we reach Ibero-American lands ... What this house lacks is greater financing, always I vindicate it.

Radio Nacional needs a bigger budget and a little more visibility.

And don't you think that perhaps it would also need, like the BBC, greater independence from governments and political parties?

Independence is the perfect state, without a doubt.

But, honestly, on National Radio I don't think you can talk about the influence of governments.

That is my personal experience, I have worked with different governments and with several CEOs.

At Radio Nacional we have worked and we work quite independently, I say this sincerely.

They have always allowed me to work with total freedom, I have never felt pressures, if I had felt them I would have left, I am a very sensitive person and those things would affect me a lot. I said that, in addition to a higher budget, RNE needs more visibility.

How do you get it?

My challenge is that this house becomes the informative and cultural reference.

And to achieve this, listeners have to be aware of the things that are being done, they have to find out.

For that, to spread them, I need support from our sister Televisión Española and a dissemination campaign through, for example, social networks or advertising.

And then a bigger budget too.

The rest we have: we have ideas, professionals, enthusiasm, technology ... And do you think that you will be able to make RNE that reference you are talking about?

Sure it can be done.

It is necessary to put to it between all.

But I think that in two years we could do it.

We have already started.

Is public radio necessary?

I believe that it is absolutely necessary and essential, because it offers what others do not offer.

RNE has six stations with a huge variety of informative, cultural, educational and informative projects like no other medium has, without commercial or audience interests, because we are driven by quality rather than quantity.

Now that you are the director of RNE, will you have time to write?

I stopped writing the day they named me.

I have finished a book of poems and a book of stories that I had just presented to the publishers.

But when Rosa María Mateo proposed me for this position, I called the publishers and told them to stop them, we will not edit them until I leave the position.

And in this time I have hardly been able to read.

The last two books I have been able to read are

In the meadows sown with eyes

, the latest collection of poems by Antonio Colinas, and

A Place Called Old

, by Olga Tokarczuk, a very seductive book.

And when I want to totally relax I read

Tintin

.

I became a journalist for Tintin and for the movie "Front Page".

I am very much a lover of Tintin, when I want to relax he has the ability to take me to other places, to make me evade.

It's like watching a Hitchcock movie.

Is it true that you have a rock group?

In my youth at the beginning of the 80's, I wrote poetry, wrote songs, did photography that I developed at home, painted and got to do some exhibitions ... I wanted to let my creative streak come out somewhere.

And yes, he also had a pop-rock group, Decretales Extravagantes, and we gave several concerts, we got to play in Rockola, in some of the then fashionable pubs and in festivals such as Vallecas or Villaverde Alto.

What happens is that the military separated us.

But we got together again 30 years later and now we give one concert a year.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

• Final interview

• media

• Journalism

• literature

The Final InterviewLuis Herrero: "Spain is having a catastrophic response to the pandemic"

Rush Limbaugh dies, the 'father' of the word 'feminazi'

The final interviewMamen Mendizábal: "My worst interview was with Bertín Osborne, who was aggressive"

See links of interest

• Work calendar

• Burnley - Arsenal

• Real Valladolid - Getafe

• Spezia - Benevento

• Borussia Mönchengladbach - Bayer 04 Leverkusen

• Eintracht Frankfurt - VfB Stuttgart