Telemadrid

Telemadrid, is a public television station of Madrid. It is affiliated with FORTA since its inception, and it is a public channel that belongs exclusively to the autonomous government of Madrid. It began its broadcast on 2 May 1989 in Madrid. Since then, the programming has been dominated by educational programs directed towards the population of that region. Since Madrid is the capital of the country, it puts special emphasis on national political information. As with many other autonomous Spanish networks, Telemadrid suffered greatly during the Spanish financial crisis and requested €88m from the Spanish government to prevent it from becoming bankrupt.[1]

Telemadrid
Launched2 May 1989
Owned byMadrid Government
Country Spain
Broadcast areaCommunity of Madrid
HeadquartersPozuelo de Alarcón
Sister channel(s)LaOtra
Websitehttp://www.telemadrid.es
Availability
Terrestrial
DTTVChannel 7
Cable
Vodafone TVChannel 7
IPTV
Movistar+Channel 7

First years

Telemadrid was created by the PSOE government (Spanish Socialist Party) when Joquin Leguina was the president of the Madrid Autonomous Region. During its first years, Telemadrid occupied the buildings of the Agencia EFE, where it suffered an attack from GRAPO at lunchtime on 29 May 1993, yet suffered no victims. In fact, the event was covered live on Telemadrid. On 11 March 1997 they celebrated the opening of their current location, in the Ciudad de la Imagen, in Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid. The building, which was called "special interest" on World Architecture Day in October 1997, holds all of the production centers for the radio-television entity.

The programming of Telemadrid has always revolved around the lives of madrileños, focusing on information, sports, children's programming, series and movies and politics. Some of their shows have been exported to other autonomous regional television stations, and even to other national television stations like "Buenos días, Madrid" or "Madrid Directo". During its lifetime, it has featured such shows as La banda de Telemadrid, Cyberclub, Top Madrid, Todo Madrid, Gran Vía, Fútbol es fútbol, and En acción. Currently, the lineup of the station is made up of more than eight hours of information in many different formats: Telenoticias, Círculo a primera hora, Alto y claro, Diario de la noche, Sucedió en Madrid, En pleno Madrid, Mi cámara y yo and Telenoticias sin fronteras. In addition, the station, has always broadcast sports (En acción, Madrid se mueve, Fútbol es fútbol and the national league - until 2006) and it has broadcast bullfighting programs and information.

The digital era

The year 2001 marked a turning point in the history of the Ente Público Empresarial. Telemadrid became the first autonomous television station to utilize Digital terrestrial television (DTT). After a year in tests, on 19 March 2001, the President of Madrid, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, inaugurated the broadcast of laOtra, a second autonomous channel exclusively for the DTT system. During its first years it focused on programs of cultural content, suggesting a new model of television with new formats, focused on music, literature, art, and modern sociopolitical movements. The principal programs were Básico, Central de sonidos, Traslucúa, De formas, Otras entrevista, Otra gente, Uno más and La vieja ceremonia, among others.

Nevertheless, this second channel suffered a restructuring in 2006, when it began broadcasting in analog format. Since then, the old content of laOtra began to share airtime with reruns of the primary channel and with newscasts, sports, and children's shows. The analog broadcasting set the national and autonomous administrations at odds on several occasions, since laOtra began its analog broadcast without the permission of Spain's Ministry of Industry, who oversees the allocation of broadcast frequencies, and to whom the station had gone on previous occasions to obtain a license. The broadcast emissions were found to have originated from the facilities of a water company, Canal de Isabel Segunda, politically linked to the Community of Madrid. As of September 2006, Telemadrid' faces a fine of one million euros and the cancellation of laOtra if in fact it is considered just under Spanish law.

Many believe that this sanction hurts the Madrileños when compared with the citizens of other autonomous communities who already have two channels broadcast in analog format, like Euskadi, Andalusia, Valencia, or the Canary Islands, and even three, as in the case of Catalonia. Others by contrast believe that Telemadrid did not follow appropriate procedure and that consequently it should accept the closure of the channel.

Criticism and controversy

Telemadrid is the public broadcaster of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, meaning it is funded by the regional government of Madrid. Since the arrival of Esperanza Aguirre as the President of Madrid on 17 October 2003, many people have accused Aguirre of transforming Telemadrid into the mouthpiece of her party, the ruling party of Madrid, the Partido Popular (PP). When Aguirre came to power, she hired Manuel Soriano to become the general director of Telemadrid. Soriano is a member of the PP and worked as press secretary of Aguirre when she was the Minister of Education and Culture during government of José María Aznar.

The biggest controversy caused by Telemadrid was a documentary about 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings. In that documentary, it aired the conspiracy theory popular with the Spanish right-wing as a fact, that the Basque separatist group, ETA, was involved in the bombings. It claimed that ETA helped Al Qaeda with the bombings, even though the investigations of the attack have debunked the claims about ETA's involvement. The documentary was also sympathetic of former Prime Minister Aznar and the Partido Popular and their reaction of the attack, and it accused the PSOE of using the attack to win the 2004 Elections.[2]

Telemadrid caused another big controversy in April 2007, when it aired a documentary called "Ciudadanos de segunda" (Second-class Citizens), which claimed that the Spanish language and the people who speak it were being persecuted in Catalonia in favor of the Catalan Language. This documentary caused outrage in Catalonia's political spheres. Josep Piqué, the leader of the Catalan branch of the Pardido Popular, said that the documentary didn't represent the reality of Catalonia. Meanwhile, the independentist Catalan party Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya demanded that the Generalitat de Catalunya respond to Telemadrid judicially, to no avail.[3][4] local non-nationalist political parties such as Ciutadans de Catalunya, however, stated that the documentary reflected was largely accurate.[5]

Another controversy took place in June 2011, when in an aired report about the 15M movement were included images of riots between the protesters and the police that actually belonged to demonstrations in Greece, being clearly visible Greek flags and policemen.[6]

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References
  1. "Telemadrid reconoce que la banca le ha cerrado el crédito y pide ayuda a la Comunidad". El Economista (in Spanish). Editorial Ecoprensa, S.A. 19 July 2012. Retrieved 5 July 2019.
  2. "El director de Telemadrid, sobre un documental del 11-M: "Ha quedado bastante bien ideológicamente"". Cadena SER (in Spanish). Madrid. 13 April 2005. Retrieved 5 July 2019.
  3. "Polémica por el documental de Telemadrid "Ciudadanos de segunda" sobre el castellano en Cataluña". 20 Minutos (in Spanish). 11 April 2007. Retrieved 5 July 2019.
  4. "Esquerra demanda a Clos que actúa contra Telemadrid". E-noticias (in Spanish). Retrieved 5 July 2019.
  5. "Gran parte de lo dicho en Telemadrid es cierto". Diario Ibérico (in Spanish). 2007. Archived from the original on 15 September 2007. Retrieved 5 July 2019.
  6. "Manipulación y censura: Telemadrid utiliza fotos de los disturbios en Grecia para acusar al Movimiento 15M de Barcelona de violentos". Salvemos Telemadrid (in Spanish). 16 June 2011. Archived from the original on 18 June 2011. Retrieved 5 July 2019.
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