The Sun Always Shines On TV

"Summer arrives." And every evening from Monday to Thursday, the Mallorcan summer and everything that is happening during it is presented by Maria Salas. The sun always shines on TV Mallorca. Until it no longer shines.

It might as well in fact rain until September, when TV Mallorca's harvest moon may terminally wane and when the sun will no longer shine. Where once was Maria and her sunny days of a Mallorcan summer will be a blank screen of an endless Mallorcan winter.

Presidents Bauzà and Salom have decided to reach for the off switch: the permanent off switch for the channel. The closure of TV Mallorca is far from unexpected; it's just a question as to when it closes. It has been leeching money and its purpose has been questionable throughout its four years of existence.

There have been suggestions that it could be absorbed into the other Mallorcan television channel, IB3, or that it could become a second IB3 channel - IB3-2 presumably - but neither suggestion has found favour with the hatchet wielders at the regional government and Council of Mallorca.

The decision to close TV Mallorca and to send in a lawyer as its new director-general to oversee its closure has brought forward protests. Two hundred demonstrated in the Plaza España. One might be tempted to suggest that this was the sum of its audience, but that would be unfair. Its now ex-director-general said earlier this year that the channel was watched by 77,000 people on the island, without detailing for how long they watch or how often.

All manner of groups have leapt to the defence of TV Mallorca. They read like a list of the usual suspects on the left: the Obra Cultural Balear (OCB); the Esquerra Unida (the united left); the ecology warriors of GOB (quite what this has to do with them is not clear); PSOE (Francina Armengol, the former president of the Council of Mallorca, calling the closure decision a "political, social and economic error"); the Mallorcan socialist party; and something called the Association of the Memory of Mallorca.

Amidst this little lot there is the unmistakable sound of a political point being made, one that comes back to the Catalan question, though this does rather overlook the fact that IB3 is also a Catalan station.

Questionable though the necessity for TV Mallorca is, the economic error that Armengol has referred to deserves some consideration. In addition to the loss of some one hundred or so jobs, the station costs far less to run than IB3 (its annual budget of 10.5 million euros is a sixth of that of the other station). But as important is the effect that the closure will have on the channel's suppliers (and it should be noted that it is both a television and a radio station).

Some 2,000 employees of these suppliers - production companies and audio-visual equipment providers - are said to be likely to be affected by closing down TV Mallorca. This may not mean that they lose their jobs or that the suppliers themselves have to close, but the loss of the station is clearly not good news for them. Moreover, these suppliers have grown up on the back of both IB3 and TV Mallorca in creating an industrial cluster that shouldn't be underestimated in terms of its significance.

The ParcBit technology park in Palma is home to a number of these audio-visual companies, and the technology park is foremost in being the impulse behind what innovation, development and economic diversification there is in Mallorca. TV Mallorca's role in adding to this impulse may be being overstated but it is nevertheless important. It would be interesting to learn what Josep Aguiló, the regional government's vice-president, makes of the potentially negative impact of shutting TV Mallorca down. With his finance hat on, he would probably argue that it was unavoidable, but he is also in charge of business, employment and industry; the super-ministries that Bauzá has created have the potential to raise conflicts of interest, and Aguiló's has the most potential conflicts.

Even if it is and remains a minority-interest channel, TV Mallorca has a role that is wider than simply being a broadcaster. The government's desire to cut costs is understandable enough, but Armengol is almost certainly right when she refers to the error being made. Unfortunately, the discourse regarding the closure has become a political one, with the inevitable (and not wholly justifiable) hints, evidenced by the support of the likes of the OCB and GOB, that TV Mallorca is a victim of alleged PP anti-Catalanism and anti-regionalism.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.