PP candidate wants to shut down Catalan public broadcaster and reopen it hiring “normal people”

The leader and candidate of the Catalan People’s Party (PP), Xavier García Albiol, said that the PP will propose to “shut down” the Catalan public broadcaster and “reopen it hiring normal and plural people.” In comments during a campaign dinner, the PP candidate said that the Catalan TV programming is "unacceptable", especially when considering that it is paid with "public money". "It should be changed from the bottom to the top," he said, in comments that infuriated TV workers.

In fact, TV3 journalists are already studying the possibility of filling a lawsuit against García-Albiol for an alleged crime of "incitation to hate." "We say no to this hate campaign," said the committee of workers of TV3 in a tweet.

The Spanish government initial plan to suspend Catalonia's self-government also included the intervention of all the public media: TV3, Catalunya Radio and the Catalan News Agency (ACN) in order to ensure "neutrality". This caused huge outrage in the sector, so public media where finally left aside and were not intervened when Madrid took direct control of Catalonia. However, the PP has regularly challenged the neutrality of the channel, which is the most watched in Catalonia and has the most popular news shows.

TV3 journalists have always defended their professionality and denied any wrongdoing. In fact, they received the support of all colleagues from other stations when the PP hinted it could intervene it.

Albiol's proposal was backed by fellow Catalan People's Party member Alejandro Fernández, who said that it is "disproportionate" and "exaggerated" that TV3 costs 320 million euros a year, 10 times more than the 30 million costs the television of Castilla y León.

"I am worried that in Catalonia there are certain issues that can not be talked about, while other civilized and democratic societies in Europe can be approached with normality," said Fernández in an interwiew with Catalunya Ràdio.

Fernández assured that "the proportion between population and price" of Catalan public television "is not normal". In this sense, he recalled that Castile and Leon has 2.6 million inhabitants, one third of the population in Catalonia, and the television of that community costs 10 times less.