At 12:19 p.m. on November 29, 2013, Channel 9's signal faded to black. Despite the resistance of the workers who rebelled and some grotesque episodes such as the arrival of a technician - “Paco Telefunken” - who finally refused to cut the broadcast -, the Police took over the Burjassot Program Production Center and, in compliance the court order, the channel was turned off and, with it, the broadcasts that began in 1989.
The Valencian Government at that time, with the popular Alberto Fabra at the helm, disconnected Valencian television with the justification of the economic constraints of a Consell drowned by the crisis with the firm intention of opening the debate on the continuity of regional televisions. However, no other regional leader (neither from the PP nor from any other party) dared to follow in Fabra's footsteps despite the fact that the audience of the regional channels has suffered in recent years after the emergence of platforms and thematic channels. .
A decade after the closure of Channel 9 and after the recovery of broadcasts in 2018 with the creation of À Punt, television workers gathered yesterday in front of the Palau de la Generalitat Valenciana to remember what happened with a clear message to the new rulers: “À Punt is not the time.” A call that demanded from the PP and Vox Executive “quality television, with a sufficient budget and without interventionism.”
Some doubts that the Valencian Government wants to forcefully clear up. Sources from the Presidency confirm to La Vanguardia that their roadmap does not include closures or privatizations and they are displeased by the scenario painted by the unions, as they assure that they have never shown a hostile attitude against television nor have they attempted to condition its contents. or influence it politically. In fact, they give the example that expenses such as football rights have been authorized that until now the network did not have. Therefore, they deny any catastrophic scenario.
The unions do not make the same reading. The president of the Works Committee, Toni Villarreal, admits that it is not so much the fear of a new closure - which other workers have confessed to this newspaper after the traumatic experience of 2013 - but the danger that the new Valencian Executive will not comply. involves the consolidation of the chain for economic reasons. “We cannot talk about privatizations because with the current staff, we can only do news and the rest of the schedule is already outsourced. Most of the production is already in private hands,” he explains.
Juan Carlos Galera, also a member of the Business Committee, points out that the danger lies in television becoming “a zombie” that can barely fulfill its public service function. Galera describes the reasons for his concern as the changes that they want to introduce to put a cap on the Consell's maximum investment in television or the fact that, in principle, the VAT is not going to be assumed by the Executive, which requires À Punt to reserve and not spend 11.5 million euros of its budget.
A situation that would fully affect external production and the audiovisual industry that works for television. However, the management of À Punt does not lose hope that this Wednesday, coinciding with the difficult anniversary of the closure, some amendment will be presented to mitigate the impact of VAT.
A hope that Ximo Pérez, vice president of Valencian Audiovisual Producers and producer of the legendary series L’Alqueria Blanca, shares. Pérez believes that the VAT issue will be resolved in the amendments to the budgets since otherwise it would be “devastating for the sector”, since there are “1,000 direct workers linked to the À Punt budget”.
Therefore, he trusts that everything will be fixed and the network can continue providing programming; Otherwise “we would be left with news TV and cowboy movies.”
