TV3 (Catalonia)

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Availability
TV3

Launched:	September 11, 1983
Ownership:	Televisió de Catalunya
www.tv3.cat
Terrestrial
Analogue:	Catalan Countries
Digital:	Catalan Countries
Cable
ONO:	Channel 7
Imagenio:	Channel 7

TV3 is the name of Catalonia's first public television channel. It belongs to Televisió de Catalunya (Catalan Television), a subsidiary of the CCRTV. TV3 broadcasts programs only in the Catalan language, with an optional dual track in the original language for some foreign-language series and movies. TV3 is also a founding member of FORTA, a federation of regional TV companies in Spain.

1 History
2 TV3 today
3 Public debate on TV3's standards
4 The network and Catalan politics
5 Self-produced series
6 3alacarta
7 See also
8 References
9 External link

[edit] History

TV3 started its trial broadcasts on September 11, 1983 (the National Day of Catalonia), but its regular broadcasts started a few months later, on January 16, 1984. ^[1]. TV3 was the first television channel to broadcast only in Catalan. On 1985, TV3 expanded its coverage to Andorra, Northern Catalonia and Valencia, also Catalan-speaking lands. One year later, TV3 inaugurated its new headquarters in Sant Joan Despí, near Barcelona. ^[1]

Since 1987, TV3 broadcasts a second audio channel on almost all foreign-language series and movies with the original program audio ^[1], first using the Zweikanalton system and currently using NICAM. Local series and movies are usually broadcasted in NICAM stereo, although sometimes an audio narration track for blind and visually impaired viewers is provided instead.

On 1988, TV3 started a descentralization process, first broadcasting programs in Aranese language for the Val d'Aran and, one year later, opening branch offices in Tarragona, Girona and Lleida and creating the Telenoticies Comarques, a county news program broadcasted simultaneously in disconnection for each on the four Catalonian provinces.

On 1995, Televisió de Catalunya launched TVCi, a satellite channel which broadcasts a selection of TV3 programs though the Astra and Hispasat satellites.

On 2002 started broadcasting in Digital terrestrial television system.

[edit] TV3 today

TV3 is leader in audience in Catalonia. On top of the list is TV3's daily news program, Telenotícies, which usually gets the highest ranking for in both time slots (14:30 and 20:30). It includes a very-well considered weather broadcasting program. The daily soap opera El cor de la ciutat is the most watched fiction program in Catalonia, specially among the female audience, drawing around 33%^[2] ^[3] ^[4] of the audience with as much as 40% on season finales ^[5]. Another soap opera Ventdelplà comes close, with share of about 25-29%. ^[2] ^[4]

TV3 is also considered the most informative channel and the one with the best programmes by the catalan public ^[6].

TV3 current schedule contains informational programs, both daily (Telenotícies, La Nit al Dia) and weekly (Entre línies, 30 minuts), self-produced series (El cor de la ciutat, Ventdelplà, Lo Cartanyà), international dubbed series (Fiscal Chase, Star Trek Voyager, The Guardian), morning and talk-shows (Els Matins de TV3 -around 23% share-, El Club -around 21%-25% share- ^[2] ^[4]), game shows (Toca el dos) as well as movies and sport broadcasts (F.C. Barcelona matches, Formula One races).

[edit] Public debate on TV3's standards

One of the latest TV3 offerings is "Cantamania" - a song contest in which generally talentless youngsters from Catalonia's towns and villages sing to a karaoke while their local supporters cheer them on. The show has drawn widespread criticism from TV and media critics. An article on the program in Catalonia's Avui newspaper written by Salvador Cardos i Roig, a leading journalist and sociologist, was titled "Populist Barbarity". Roig argued "It is very worrying that this half-hour exercise in summertime populism is put out by Catalonia's main public broadcaster. Cantamania, which is broadcast just before the evening news, for all its apparent banality, is just another symptom of the madness overtaking what used to be a prestigious public broadcasting network." Other influential voices raised against Cantamania (detailed in the August 6, 2006 edition of Avui) include the paper's journalist Xavier Bosch (who rhetorically asks "whatever has happened to TV3's linguistic standards?"); Daniel Condeminas, ERC councillor to CCRTV - the Catalan broadcasting corporation of which TV3 forms part ("the standard of Catalan is unacceptable); Miquel Reniu, CiU councillor to CCRTV ("the program is of very poor quality, not least when it comes to language" and "both the amount and quality of Catalan spoken on TV3 have taken a nose dive"). This might have passed unnoticed were it not for the fact that TVC has always trumpeted its role in promoting Catalan.

Further evidence of the slide in standards can be seen in programs like No em ratllis ("Don't Bug Me"), in which supposedly winsome tots and young children answer the presenters' questions on selected topics. The program broadcast on March 14, 2007 was very much par for the course, with kids being asked to give their views on farting, defecating and body odor. The "adult" studio guest was Pere Rubianes, whose usual stock-in-trade is humor focusing on onanism. He obligingly played along with the poo theme to the delight of the elderly studio audience. Long after the joke began to sour, the program's ineffable presenter (Júlia Otero) shifted to the smells given off by garbage. The program strengthens the case of those critics who say the network is going down the tube.

[edit] The network and Catalan politics

The network's heavy dependence on subsidies from Catalonia's regional government (Generalitat de Catalunya) has led to persistent charges of political bias in the network's news and political reporting. This appears to be well-founded. It later came to light that in 1993 Jordi Pujol, then President of Catalonia and leader of the governing Convèrgencia party, commissioned a secret report on the political sympathies of TV3's presenters and reporters. One of the targets was Salvador Alsius, erstwhile newsreader at the network and now Dean of Journalism at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. Efforts by Miquel Puig, a former Director-General of the network, to achieve the kind of political independence enjoyed by the BBC were frustrated and he resigned from the post. The subject surfaced again after the formation of Catalonia's new PSC-ERC-ICV tripartite coalition government in 2003. However, the criticisms of political partiality levelled at the network by these parties during the CiU government's preceding 23 years in power became more muted as the implications of a truly independent public broadcasting corporation began to dawn on Catalonia's new political masters. One of the casualties of the unravelling of the tripartite coalition (the ERC left after disagreements on a new Statute of Autonomy for Catalonia) and impending elections in the Fall of 2006 is new legislation for regulating TV3 (the bill was jointly sponsored by PSC and ICV parties).

Political interference may explain why TVC is often slow off the mark in covering breaking stories and gets upstaged by fleeter-footed rivals. A case in point was the assassination of Ernest Lluch, a leading public figure, by the terrorist organization ETA on the 21st of November 2001. Although the assassination took place only 20 minutes away by car from TVC's studios in Sant Joan Despí, the network's news team failed to react even though rival TV stations (Tele 5, Antena 3, TVE, and BTV) were giving the story massive coverage. The head of TVC's News Department, Josep Maria Torrent, resigned amid public uproar. The official audiovisual watchdog body - the Consell Audiovisual de Catalunya (CAC) stated that 'TVC failed to meet the standards expected of a public broadcaster'. The Union of Catalan Journalists - Sindicat de Periodistes de Catalunya - was equally scathing: 'TVC covered the assassination of Ernest Lluch badly and late, even though it was one of the gravest political events... in the history of Catalan television'.

The latest political row ([reported in El País newspaper, October 14, 2006]) to rock TV3 concerns the use made by CiU (the major opposition party) of the network's newscasts. These feature in an election DVD distributed to some 1 million households. The network has protested vociferously even though the material concerns matters of public record (it should be remembered here that TV3 is a public network). Given the highly politicized nature of Catalonia's media, the suspicion is that TV3 would have taken a very different stance if CiU rather than the tripartite coalition were in power.

[edit] Self-produced series

TV3 produces a number of series and TV movies each year. These include ^[7]:

Comedies: Teresina, S.A. (1992), Quico (1994), Poble Nou (1994), Oh, Europa! (1994) and its sequel Oh, Espanya! (1996), Pedralbes Centre (1995), Plats bruts (1999-2002), Psico express (2002), Jet Lag (2001-2006), Majoria absoluta (2002), 16 dobles (2003), L'un per l'altre (2003), Lo Cartanyà (2005-ongoing)
Dramas: Estació d’enllaç (1994), Sitges (1996), El joc de viure (1997), Dones d’aigua (1997), Laura (1998), Crims (2000)
Historical dramas: La memòria dels Cargol (1999), Temps de Silenci (2001), Des del Balcó (2001), Mirall trencat (2002).
Soap operas: Josep Maria Benet i Jornet is the most prolific soap opera author, having penned sucessful series like Poble Nou (1993-94) and its sequel Rosa (1995-96), Nissaga de Poder (1996-98) and its sequel Nissaga, l'herència (1999), Laberint d'ombres (1998-00), El cor de la ciutat (2000-ongoing) and Ventdelplà (2005-ongoing). Maria Mercè Roca and Sergi Belbel penned Secrets de Família (1995-96).