The from «Wises Commission report»: bases for a quality TV

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the recent Report of the Experts Committee on the Public Media (TV) in Spain. The objective is to understand the complex scenario and the legal and economical circumstances that have determinated the elaboration of this report, essential to prepare the restructuration of RTVE Group. Festival, we are going to refer to the evolution of RTVE Group since its origins, where it is possible to identify most of the actual problems, including the democratic transition and the last years of Aznar’s government. In second place, we are going to present the main proposals of the Experts Report that stresses the role of public television as a public service, including the critics formulated by two members of this Committee, like Miguel Angel Armedo, appointed by the Ministry of Economy and Treasure, and Fernando González Urbaneja, who has presented a particular report. The reaction of the spanish press to this Report will be presented to understand the social context, very politicized in the last year. Finally, this paper ends with a reflection on the oportunity of this report, and the necessity to tackle the financial reform of the public television, and the public mass communication media in Spain. Our paper tries to conclude that the composition of the Experts Committee should be different, with more consensus from the political forces of the spanish Parliament. We think it would be necessary to propose two different Committees, one integrated by experts like Enrique Bustamante, Emilio Lledó, Victoria Camps and Fernando Savater, specially prepared to indicate the main lines for the political overview; and a second Committee, integrated by financial and economical experts, to design the concrete estrategies to reform the spanish public television. We cannot forget that RTVE debt is the main problem that has to be solved in a stricted way as soon as possible, that implies a correction of exploitation debt. In this sense, a first step has been done, defining the necessity of a TV programation as a public service, like it has been argued by Professor Enrique Bustamante. Nonetheless, the RTVE Group reform is still unresolved, and it is a matter that has to be treated rigurously in the next months. The public debt accumulated by RTVE Group, and the public regional televisions debts, is a capital matter that has been negatively critized by european institutions..