This is how Joan Laporta has come to the conclusion of closing Barça TV

2023-05-04 07:52:49

BarcelonaJoan Laporta was one of the staunchest defenders of the continuity of Barça TV. The problem is that I wasn’t fully aware of the work that goes into running a club TV channel. For weeks, the noble plant has conveyed to him the need to reduce expenses to ease Barça’s ruinous economic situation and several voices have told him that the most appropriate thing is to close the television channel. But the president was convinced that, with half the number of workers now, around fifty, it was possible for Barça TV to continue operating. Until they explained to him that this was not possible. At least, on a Barça TV understood as it has been until now, with programming 24 hours a day and with coverage of all the club’s spaces. So Laporta ended up prioritizing, in this case, the economy. Barça TV, unless there is a 180-degree turn, which at this point is very unlikely, will go black on June 30.

Prior to the final decision, according to ARA, there were two meetings between representatives of the club and the workers. In those conversations, Barça members communicated that all possibilities were on the table: from Barça Studios absorbing all the workers (the employees’ wish) until they were all fired. Workers consulted by this newspaper explain that at the time they took it for granted that neither one extreme nor the other would be chosen and that a middle point would be found. In the middle, among other options, there were those to renew with TBSC, the Telefónica subsidiary that has been in charge of Barça TV production since 2015, or to be subcontracted by another company. “The news of the closure took us by surprise,” says a member of the channel’s works committee.

The chronology of the events of a turbulent Thursday

Last Thursday morning, while the attention of Barcelona fans was focused on the press conference on the financing of the renovation of the Camp Nou, freelance workers from Barça TV met with one of the companies subcontracted by the club to produce audiovisual content, Baikal pro. In that meeting they were informed that Barça TV would close. The news spread like wildfire and the freelancers passed the information on to the landlines. Thus, the committee asked TBSC for an explanation, which then spoke to the club and, then, scheduled a telematic meeting with the works committee for that same Thursday at 4 p.m., in which the workers had the official confirmation of the closure. At 5:21 p.m., while the Barça fans were massively welcoming Alexia Putellas and the rest of the team to the Camp Nou before the Champions League semi-final clash against Chelsea, the club issued a statement informing that it would not renew the contract with TBSC.

“According to what we were told, TBSC was the first to be surprised by the news, because it was fighting to renew the contract with its conditions”, they point out from the committee, where it is admitted that this time the Telefónica subsidiary has behaved correctly with the workers, despite the series of strikes they did at the beginning of the year to demand an improvement in salary and working conditions. “The club has taken the decision only taking into account the economic point of view and has not foreseen the harm it will cause”, say the same sources. Barça TV costs the organization 7.9 million annually. The largest part, 6.4, is paid to Telefónica, to whom the channel’s production and wage bill cost 5.5.

The closure of the channel also has an additional consequence: it leaves 8TV without 1.5 million euros per year, which is what the club paid to use one of the four TDT licenses operated by the private group that captains the businessman Nicola Pedrazzoli. The loss of this fixed money further complicates the sustainability of a television that has not yet passed the psychological figure of 1% screen share.

Loss of the club’s audiovisual heritage

“From now on, who will record the first steps of Leo Messi or the Alexia Putellas of the future?”, asks a Barça TV employee. “This decision will also affect the sections and Barça women’s. In many away games, the only way to see Jonatan Giráldez’s press conference is through Barça TV. The same goes for Barça’s roller hockey games or of futsal”, reports. “In addition, there will be institutional acts of the club that will no longer be broadcast and will go unnoticed. I have seen people on social networks writing that nothing will happen to close Barça TV, that the press conferences will already be followed on YouTube. These people are aware that the signal that allows them to watch them on YouTube is from Barça TV?”, he complains.

Is a partial solution possible?

Faced with this situation, there are voices that say that it will be essential for some Barça TV workers to continue because audiovisual content for the club must be produced despite the fact that television stops broadcasting. But the workers are pessimistic. “We don’t want to have any illusions, we are very frustrated and tired of the accumulated disappointments,” says one of them. “We are trying to make Barça understand the need to have its own means and, soon, we will start the closing negotiations with TBSC”, they point out from the works committee. “Right now, what we are being told by the club is that all 120 workers will be out and that we will see what happens to the dozen Barça Studios employees who work for Barça TV,” he adds. This is the information that was transmitted to the workers in an assembly on Tuesday. ARA has asked club sources if there is a possibility that some workers will be spared the dismissal, and the answer has been: “We don’t know, we are waiting”.