“Politics is the art of disguising particular interest as general interest.” Edmond Thiaudiere. From the sectors of the opposition to the current government, in full election campaignthe nothing “new discourse” of the shrinking of the state. A systematic, permanent campaign without substantial content.
In the case of public companies in general, and our public media company in particular, the proposals for reduction or closure are radicalized to the extreme, proposing layoffs of workers, or the loss of rights and social benefits of the communities to which these companies provide services.
How public media are financed in the world
In this context, we regularly hear or read high-sounding voices that talk with indignation about the “expense” that public media means, or the need to close them down, or privatize them, or leave them running exclusively with what they collect, assimilating them to a for-profit company. Many times, those same voices lament that our public media do not follow the example of the BBC, or RAI, or RTVEor one of the other large public media companies from different Western European countries, which, for everyone’s knowledge, deficit child because its purpose is not commercial but community service.
No government, even of the extreme right, would think of closing the public media. The data shown by a recent study based on figures from the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), shed light on the insubstantiality of some arguments: Argentine Radio and Television (RTA) is the company that manages the public televisionthe 49 National Radio stations distributed throughout the country, the Argentine Broadcasting service abroad. channel 12 of Trenque Lauquen and the Prisma Historical Archive that preserves and disseminates the largest audiovisual and sound heritage in Argentina.
In the present management, headed by Lic. lufrano rosaryhas been created, an instance of the RTA VP osvaldo santoroa Audiovisual Laboratory aimed at innovation and experimentation that is unprecedented in the sector, approved and put into operation the Public Television Code of Ethics that is the first in 70 years of history; a Gender and Diversity Directorate who develops an extraordinary task of equal opportunities; and finally, a Transparency Area leading to a representative of the political opposition.
In addition, digital media has been hierarchical, discovering its own programming to reach the Audiences on multiple platforms such as the 3.13 million followers on Youtube or more than 1 million followers Twitterreaching more than 1,500,000 connections in the World Cup final.
All this is carried out in a company that has a Plural Board of Directors (with representation of the PRO and the UCR)that it complies with all the obligations and functions that the Law requires of it, that it guarantees federal coverage so that all the inhabitants of our country can access its services, that it has a budget approved by the national congress and in which 2,395 highly-trained workers carry out their tasks on a daily basis.
* Director of Radio and Television Argentina
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