BarcelonaWhen 2023 ended, Valencian public television À Punt had little to celebrate. It closed the year with an audience of 3.0%, one tenth less than the previous year. The decline was certainly slight, but the channel appeared in last position in the regional rankings, far from results like the television stations of Catalonia, Galicia or Aragon, where they exceeded 10%. This situation has been reversed in recent days, in which the effects of DANA have catapulted the channel to its best screen share results. Proximity, values of public television and a critical attitude towards the management of the Valencian president Carlos Mazón – who has been scrutinizing the channel since he came to power – have been the keys to what could become a turning point for a brand that so far had not taken off.
The prospects for this 2024 were not particularly flattering. Until November 4, À Punt marked only a 2.5% share of the screen, for an average audience of 15,000 viewers. The arrival of DANA boosted ratings to 12.3% on October 29, and to 13.5% the following day, resulting in the two best all-time television records . And the good records have continued once the critical situation has been overcome but the Valencian Country must face the tasks of rescue and damage management. In the last week, the channel has fluctuated between 4.6% and 12.2% screen share. If we look since October 28, the channel has averaged 8.5% and this places it in fourth position, behind La1 (13.3%), Antena 3 (12.7%) and Telecinco (8.7%), and ahead of La Sexta (8.2%) and Cuatro (5.4%).
À Punt’s coverage of the natural disaster is in stark contrast to what its predecessor, Channel 9, did when there was the Valencia metro accident in 2006. At that time, television was heavily controlled by the government and the news media tended to minimize as much as they could a case that left 43 dead. When Channel 9 was closed, the workers took control of the broadcasts and apologized: “Channel 9 had an attitude unworthy of a public television station, which should be on the side of its citizens. The orders to silence those voices, not to enter the investigation, to keep many things quiet, came from the office of the Palace of the Generalitat”, they said.
The disrepute and economic suffocation caused a channel that in 2006 marked a not inconsiderable 14.3% to have only a 3.7% following in 2013, the year of its dismantling, also the result of a economic suffocation applied by the government of Alberto Fabra.
In this sense, one of the clips that has circulated the most on the networks is the one that shows Victòria Rosselló, head of meteorology at the chain, commenting on air about the slowness of the Mazón executive when it comes to giving the general alarm: “Knowing it as they knew it, they were not able to make the population aware of the risk.” And he added: “At three o’clock, and throughout the whole morning, both on the networks and in the space of time we were saying that you should not leave the house. And the general alarm was given at 8”.
At war for funding
To accurately calibrate À Punt’s audience results, it would be necessary to weigh its budget with that of the other television stations. With 84 million euros of contribution from the Generalitat, it is a significantly lower figure than the leading regional channels such as TV3 (330 million), the Galician TVG (119) but higher than the 50 million with which Aragón TV achieves its remarkable result
All in all, the arrival of PP and Vox in the Valencian government raised fears of a progressive disarticulation of this public medium. At the end, the representative of the far-right formation in the Valencian Parliament, María Llanos Massó, ironically tweeted that the television should be called “About to close”. And, in another tweet, the parliamentary group cited the chain’s news services and took the opportunity to threaten them: “Take advantage of what’s left in the convent, we’re going to close you down.”
Mazón, however, did not accept Vox’s demand and the departure of the Abascals from the government, in July, has finally removed the specter of closure. The Valencian president, on the other hand, has focused his strategy on promoting measures that modify the model of the entity, not least to avoid a dismantling like that of Channel 9, with the media noise it generated. But, while this is coming, the previous government left a funding model and a program contract tied to it that guaranteed a certain stability of the chain, since it sets a minimum of 0.3% of the Generalitat’s budget as a public contribution to the averages (and a maximum of 0.6%). The 84 million granted in 2024 means that this legal requirement will be fulfilled, even if only to a minimum.
The coverage of the DANA has mobilized the entire structure, but it has also stressed it: “At times like this it is when it is more obvious that our possibilities are limited because so is our budget, a problem that we drag from the very creation of the entity”, the Professional Council that represents the house’s journalists explained to the ARA. “And, despite this, dozens of scenarios have been reached, hundreds of affected people have been spoken to, they have acted as an official public service medium for institutional communications, dozens of “specialists and have fought against all the difficulties that a coverage like this entails”.
When asked about possible interference from the government, the Council assures that “it has no evidence that any slogan, instruction, veto or prohibition has been transmitted when it comes to making the covers. If the management has received any, it has not been transmitted to the staff who prepare the newsletters, at least until the moment of writing these lines. This has therefore made it possible to work “with many difficulties but with freedom”. And they add: “We think that, considering the history of the Valencian public media, this is more than remarkable.”
