Over a dozen news media organizations, most of them international, sent teams to the headquarters of Catalan public broadcaster TV3 in Sant Joan Despí this Sunday. The journalists wanted to know what the mood is in the Catalan television studios, with the threat of a Spanish government takeover of the channel hanging over their heads, and they spoke with television professionals and with the public network's director, Vicent Sanchis.
According to Saturday's announcement by Spanish president Mariano Rajoy, the public media managed by the Catalan Corporation of Audiovisual Media (CCMA) would be subject to intervention from Madrid. Given this possibility, which has awakened the interest of the international media, the CCMA noted that both TV3 and the public radio network, Catalunya Ràdio, have the duty of complying with the mandates of the Catalan Parliament, and that they will continue offering a “high quality service, committed to democracy and always to plurality”.
Director Vicent Sanchis wanted to send viewers a message of reassurance. "We say to them that they can trust in our Board of Management, in the people that manage our media, in the professional and employees' committees,” stressed the TV3 director. "We will maintain the same model of television that has allowed us to win both audience and credibility, a description that cannot be applied to certain other public broadcasters who are now being presented as a model of integrity,” he declared.
In the same line, the director of the CCMA's public radio network, Saül Gordillo, stated that “the fact that a part of article 155 affects Catalunya Ràdio will not stop us from reporting and communicating with our audience with all the rigour, commitment to plurality and spirit of public service that we have shown until now”.