“We consider that the Public Television has become a propaganda mechanism. During the campaign, 75% of the time our space was talked about was done in a very negative waypaying for the dirty campaign, the campaign of fear,” said the president-elect Javier Milei in dialogue with Eduardo Feinmann in Miter radio.
“I do not adhere to those practices of having a covert Ministry of Propaganda: it has to be privatized. The same with National Radio. Everything that can be in the hands of the private sector, will be in the hands of the private sector.“, specific. And privatization would reach the Telam agency.
The discussion of public media and spending was one of the campaign topics. Pakapaka even became a trend in the Twitter discussion on the platform now called Milei, and have the Public Television property to “construct buildings.” “If you sell a public medium you get money, that money you can invest 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’s worth to build a tower there? I imagine a 100 meter tower, ATC is well located. It would be a great deal. For the kids who don’t have anywhere 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 like Milie, he pointed out against the propaganda role of the public media: “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 the story of 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 in the face of the deniers who seek to close them and promote hatred and violence,” SATSAI responded then, 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.
The discussion about public media is budgetary and 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.
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