Seventeen out of every 24 hours of Catalunya Ràdio's programming from Monday to Friday are directed by external producers. The station's main program, El matí de Catalunya Ràdio, has just been awarded to the production company La Manchester Radiofònica, SL, 100% owned by journalist Ricard Ustrell, which premiered this week at the head of the program.
The cost of the season is 1,914,196 euros, according to the contracting page of the Catalan Audiovisual Media Corporation (CCMA).
Ustrell was chosen in July to replace Laura Rosel, who was halfway through her contract. The budget for two seasons of Rosel was €359,920 (179,960 each), that is, less than a tenth of that, although Ustrell pays from those €1.9 million for all collaborations.
The award to La Manchester, after weighing other options, generated an angry reaction from the works council of the Catalan public radio, which issued a statement charging against “externalization” and against the “massive landing of external personnel, who have not gone through no public selection process, when inside the house there are accredited professionals”.
Catalunya Ràdio has about 400 workers, according to sources from the works council.
The matí is carried out in total by around twenty people, with general contributions from the information services. A little less than half are La Manchester staff, according to CCMA sources. "Never, in these 40 years [of the station's existence], has the program considered the flagship of Catalunya Ràdio depended so forcefully on external personnel," the committee said in its public statement.
When she was elected in 2022, Rosel asked to hire an external person, but the management denied it, citing work fit problems.
Sources from the corporation defend that El matí is “an informative magazine that is fundamentally nourished by the house's informative services, and this is being demonstrated in the first days, with absolute involvement between both parties.” “Of course there are visible external faces, because we have to be competitive in the market,” they add.
Ustrell's predecessor, Laura Rosel, was also unrelated to the CCMA, as were previous presenters of this space. The difference is in the equipment now provided by La Manchester. On Fridays, in addition, Ustrell gives the microphone to journalist Marina Romero, so he can dedicate himself to preparing the TV3 program Col·lapse, which his company also produces.
The Ustrell landing has generated some internal dysfunctions. As a private company, and having a global budget, La Manchester Radiofònica can decide without the restraints of public contracting how much it pays its collaborators; It is the first time that the program operates in this way. The matí has thus been able to sign collaborators from other programs of the same station, explain journalists from the house. Also from other stations.
The CCMA emphasizes that although the hiring of Ustrell affects “a hybrid model that has been applied for years”, the bulk of Catalunya Ràdio's staff – with technicians, linguists, salespeople, etc. – is dedicated to information services, “who are on guard 24 hours a day, the staff is perfectly utilized, because the daily bulletins are also programming.”
The committee's protest, in any case, went beyond the Ustrell case, because on weekdays there are six programs directed and partly produced by staff from as many external production companies.
The morning ends with L'ultima hora, a comedy space produced by the Quim company
The midday and evening news programs are 100% public production, although the afternoon sports program Tot Costa is directed by two journalists who are currently external, but who are in a dispute with the management to join the staff. They have presented the same space for several seasons, with the in-house sports editorial team; In previous similar cases, the labor resolution was favorable to the worker.
Between 4 and 7 p.m., La Tarda takes over, produced by Atomic Beat Media. The space has lost an hour on the grid this year, in favor of the news program that precedes it. The afternoon is carried out with three people from outside the CCMA and nine internal ones. The cost of this season of El búnquer, produced by El corral de l'humor, is also not yet known.
After Catalunya Nit, this season the station promotes its own product, Women and Days, directed by Montse Virgili, which goes from weekly to daily. The day ends with the historic (and also own) The Night of the Ignorant, voiced by Xavier Solà.
The work week ends with another external leadership program, Finestra indiscreta, dedicated to cinema. It is presented by the veteran and renowned Álex Gorina.
Also the star program of the weekend, El suplement, led by Roger Escapa, is awarded to an external company, Jo també t’estimo, SL. Internal personnel also intervene in this space.
The weekend programming schedule varies depending on the sports calendar, but as a general rule, on Saturdays, ten and a half hours are broadcast in which external personnel intervene, and on Sundays, 11. The programming of both days has some differences. This proportion is influenced by the program La TDT / La transmissió d’en Torquemada, which when there are Barça matches produced by Boot Room, SL.
In the slots left by sports, the weekend hosts some of the totally own production programs, some of them of long duration such as The travelers of the Great Anaconda, by Toni Arbonès, or Ciutat Maragda, by David Guzmán.
In addition to the mother brand, the 400 staff cover Catalunya Informació 24 hours a day as well as IcatFM, for music and culture, and Catalunya Música, dedicated to classical music.
