2023-04-27 17:58:47
Barcelona“On June 30 they will take the channel to black,” Ernest Méndez, the president of the Barça TV works committee, told ARA. The workers received the news during the meeting held this morning in Madrid with the human resources department of TBSC Telefónica, the company currently in charge of the production of the Blaugrana television channel. “This means that everything will close. In principle, all the workers will be laid off,” Méndez lamented. Prior to the meeting, the Barcelona club sent a burofax to Telefónica to inform them of the decision.
This measure will affect around 150 workers, 90 of whom are in the workforce, and it comes when the contract with Telefónica is about to end, which precisely ends on June 30. According to ARA, Barça TV costs the Barcelona club around 7.9 million euros annually. The largest part, 6.4 million, is paid to Telefónica (whose production and salary of the channel cost 5.5) and the rest, 1.5, is to pay for the TDT multiplex.
Thus, Barça television, inaugurated in 1999 during the term of Josep Lluís Núñez, will put an end to its broadcasts after 24 years in operation. “They have a very good human team. The problem is that they are working on a regional product aimed at club members via DTT. But the fact that the product is not good is not the fault of the workers, but of the club’s board of directors, who want them to make this type of product”, explains a former manager to ARA. Barça TV can only be viewed over-the-air in Catalonia and via digital payment platforms throughout Spain.
Earlier this year, Barça TV workers staged a series of strikes during Barça men’s matches to complain about salary freezes since 2015, when Telefónica took over production, leading to that in some cases the basic monthly salary did not reach 1,000 euros. On the other hand, the company committee reported to the Labor Inspectorate the violations that TBSC was committing against workers’ labor rights, such as not respecting rest time, not negotiating work schedules with the committee or not complying with overtime agreements.
The works council then met with president Joan Laporta to find a solution to the conflict and the club told the workers that the possibility of being absorbed by Barça Studios once the contract ended was being studied with Telefónica, the desire of the vast majority of Barça TV workers according to an internal survey to which ARA had access. Only an unexpected 180-degree turn would finally make this option a reality.
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