Pakapaka became a trend in the Twitter discussion on the platform now called and have the Public Television property to “construct buildings.” “If you sell a public medium you get money, you can invest that money in education and health, and it improves people’s quality of life.
I prefer there to be more schools and less public television,” said Marra. “Didn’t you see what that building is? Do you know what it costs to build a tower there? I imagine a 100 meter tower, ATC is well located. It would be a new business. For the kids who have no place to have vacancies, it would be very important… I am not in the real state sector, but I understand that there are people who are willing to build homes there,” he added.
}And then he questioned Pakapaka’s editorial line: “My mother is a history teacher and she told me that in Pakapaka ideological tendencies decrease. She is a big lady, imagine, she has a lot of experience. And she tells me that they tell history in a particular way. It is one thing to do it privately and another publicly with taxes. If it is Pakapaka to lower an ideological line, it is wrong,” he insisted.
“Together with the comrades of Pakapaka and all the state-run media, we continue to fight for more and better public media to strengthen our democracy, also against the deniers who seek to close them and promote hatred and violence,” responded from SATSAI, the union led by Horacio Arreceygor.
And also Osvaldo Santoro, vice president of Public TV, came to the crossroads: “This theory about Public TV comes from a long time ago. It is a very coveted space. This dream of the right is old, but they do not take into account what “It’s Radio and Television Argentina. There is one thing in these people’s heads that is 50% business and 50% ignorance.”
“TV has 70 years of history. It was born in 1951 in a Peronist government. This is annoying from an ideological point of view, not from another place. Public TV is not only television, but it includes 49 national radio stations, plus a Trenque Lauquen channel. “This conglomerate includes Argentine Radio and Television chaired by Rosario Lufrano,” the actor noted.
Debate
The political intersection once again puts the focus on public media and its administration. A debate that is not exclusive to Argentina, and is replicated in Spain with RTVE, to give a European example (see box). In the Argentine case, 245 people work at Public Contents Society of the State (CPSE), the company that brings together and manages the 3 state public educational channels, Encuentro, Pakapaka and Deportv, in addition to the Contar platform and the Animar Mocap Studio. “In Pakapaka, the people affected exclusively by the signal are 18. The rest of the plant is made up of the Encuentro, Deportv, Contar and Animar Mocap teams, and the transversal areas such as programming, administration, technique, acquisitions, adaptations and press, that work comprehensively for the three signals,” CPSE explained to NOTICIAS.
“We partner with more than 100 SME production companies and universities. In these 4 years, Pakapaka generated 176 projects, which translate into 1,400 hours of its own production. These projects were carried out by audiovisual production companies, studio houses and other public channels that generated approximately 1,500 jobs,” they add. That is, its production is mostly outsourced.
And the Public Content area (CPSE) would have generated more than 5,500 qualified jobs externally according to data provided by that organization, with more than 400 original productions and 5,800 hours of television. The Pakapaka channel was born on June 1, 2007 as a initiative of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Federal Planning, Public Investment and Services. And its creation had as its main objective to provide a children’s entertainment offer that also promoted “educational and cultural values”: the name “Pakapaka” comes from a colloquial expression that means “very good”, and was chosen to reflect the desire that the channel precisely offered high-quality and attractive content for children, rivaling foreign content, “presenting programs that reflected the richness of Argentine and Latin American culture.”
Budget
The discussion about public media is budgetary or ideological, as Ramiro Marra and Osvaldo Santoro propose, and their respective political spaces, at opposite extremes. For the former, it represents an indefensible expense in the deficit Argentine budget. For the latter, a defense of local culture, with a federal leg that private media conglomerates do not ensure, thus repeating the model of other European public television stations.
And like some of them, Public TV and National Radio are deficient. The 2022 financial year (with the Qatar World Cup included, which allowed advertising revenue to be boosted in November and December) left a red mark of more than $14,000 million, which would be equivalent to about $79 million at the official exchange rate of December 2022.
And the income of the state company managed by Rosario Lufrano ($581 million) covers only a small part of the operating expenses. Resolution 747/22 signed by the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, and published in the Official Gazette, reported an aid of $12,244 million that the National Treasury sent to RTA, and which was added to the $2,684 million sent by the Entity. National Communications (ENACOM), amount that corresponds to RTA by the Audiovisual Media Law.
Figures that will surely grow due to inflation in 2023, but also in accordance with an increase in the number of employees that has not yet been fully audited: in 2022 there were some 2,296 workers according to the Budget approved by Massa, but there would be 2,409 for the Integration and Transparency Unit . And the current management reopened the incorporations after the cut of almost 800 employees that Mauricio Macri’s management made in RTA.
And the above is accompanied by an increase in the wage bill: in 2022 there was an interannual increase of 83%, exceeding the inflation recorded during that period by the INDEC, which was 64%. Thus, the red increased by 114%: it had been $3,508 million for the first half of 2021; and $7.49 billion in the first half of last year.
“The company’s objective is not to achieve profitability from an economic point of view but rather to advance in obtaining social benefits,” stated in an annex the Resolution approved by Massa last December, which highlighted that the objectives of RTA are “the dissemination of public information, cooperation with educational and health institutions, broadcasting cultural and entertainment content, paying special attention to the federal aspect. A look that nullifies the possibility of public media being thought of as a success story in audience and income.
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