Spain: Jose Antonio Sanchez, president of RTVE, announces the continuation of the sports channel Teledeporte

Jose Antonio Sanchez, president of the Spanish public broadcasting group RTVE since 16/10/2014, announced the continuation of the Teledeporte sports channel on 26/11/2014. His predecessor, Leopoldo González-Echenique, had announced the closure of the free sports TV channel on 31/12/2014, due to the serious financial problems that RTVE faces.

The Spanish public broadcasting group had a debt of €716m on 31/12/2013, and estimated its provisional losses for 2014 to €130m. The announcement of the closure of Teledeporte, which was expected to save €16m, has aroused strong dissatisfaction among Spanish viewers. The government finally agreed to the savings plan proposed by José Antonio Sanchez, which provides in particular a reduction in costs of €20m in 2015, thanks to €2m in savings in production activities and €4 million in savings through down-sizing.

RTVE: loss multiplied by 3.9 in three years

• There is no TV licensing in Spain, and RTVE has no longer received advertising revenue since the 2009 Finance Act.
  • Since the introduction of this law, the income of RTVE is constantly…