Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Isabel Fernández Alonso
Author-Name: Quique Badia Masoni
Title:  Financiación pública de medios privados. Los casos de los grupos catalanes Hermes Comunicacions y Editora de Premsa Periòdica Ara (2016-2018)
Abstract: Resumen:Este trabajo describe y analiza las transferencias de fondos públicos –fundamentalmente subvenciones y publicidad institucional– a las dos empresas de medios catalanas que editan las principales cabeceras de línea editorial independentista –El Punt Avui y Ara– durante los años álgidos del procés (2016-2018).Se trata del primer estudio que se realiza con este enfoque en España. Ha sido posible al recurrir a la normativa sobre transparencia para recabar datos de las principales administraciones catalanas.Se concluye que los ingresos públicos, al menos un 20% del total, son clave para la supervivencia de las dos compañías.  Abstract:This work focuses on one of the three main mechanisms of media capture by political power: the transfer of public funds to the accounts of companies owning media outlets. Specifically, it focuses on regulated subsidies and contracts for the display ofinstitutional advertising, which clearly is the channel through which the main transfersare made. However, this is a very complex issue, particularly in a country like Spain witha highly decentralized administration, which means that the Spanish Government andthe regional and local governments –provincial councils, city councils and other entitiessuch as insular or regional councils– can arbitrate different means that contribute to swellthe coffers of media companies.This paper sets out to discuss the case of Catalonia, as it is the Spanish autonomousregion that has traditionally invested the most in institutional advertising and subsidies tothe press. This strong investment is largely explained by the relevance that the differentCatalan governments have given to the articulation, through very interventionist mediapolicies, of their own communication system -the so-called espai català de comunicació-,seen by them as essential to advance the process of national construction.Specifically, the public funds received during the three-year period of 2016-2018 -thepeak of the so-called procés (a nationalist venture aiming at Catalonia’s independence)- bythe media companies Hermes Comunicacions and Edició de Premsa Periòdica Ara areanalyzed. We aim at assessing the impact that these funds have had on the turnover –and,therefore, on the viability– of the publishers of the two main Catalan pro-independencenewspapers during the above-mentioned period. El Punt Avui and Ara, respectively.For this purpose, we have obtained, through transparency procedures, the incomeaccrued by the media outlets of both groups from institutional advertising –and otherminor sources–, from the Catalan Government (Generalitat de Catalunya), from the fourCatalan provincial councils and from the city councils of the capitals of the four provincesof this community during the three-year period under study. The business figuresand income from subsidies were obtained through the Mercantile Register by studyingprofit and loss statements. The balance sheets and management reports of the two saidcompanies have provided us with elements of interpretation regarding business strategiesand, especially, the dependence of both companies on public financing.Qualitative analysis has therefore been used, as well as documentary analysis as aresearch tool –including also abundant journalistic work–, and secondary data analysis.It is concluded that the two companies under study, Hermes Comunicacions andEdició de Premsa Periòdica Ara, have a proven dependence on public funding, particularlyon institutional advertising of the Generalitat, but also on subsidies and other meansfor the transfer of public funds, such as block subscriptions to the newspapers by thedifferent administrations.Specifically, it is shown that public funding accounts for at least 20% of the turnoverof these companies. It should be remembered that only the four largest Catalan municipaladministrations have been analyzed, and that there is evidence of regular agreementswith other municipalities.Particularly significant is the acknowledgment of this dependence on the publicsector by the management reports of the companies here analyzed. Thus, in its 2017 report, Hermes Comunicacions points out that the suspension of institutional campaigns,coinciding with the intervention of the Generalitat by the central government as a resultof the unilateral declaration of independence, forced them to an immediate reductionin production and personnel costs. Meanwhile, the management reports of Edició dePremsa Periòdica Ara related to the financial years 2016, 2017 and 2018 coincide inhighlighting as one of their main risks the dependence on institutional advertising for theirturnover (the more conspicuous one being the year 2017).This dependence is even more relevant if we take into account the accumulatedlong-term debt of the two companies that exceeded €13 million for the publisher of ElPunt Avui at the end of the three-year period under study, with a turnover of about €16million in 2018, and €10.6 million for the publisher of Ara, showing a turnover of about€13 million the same year 2018.It is clear that the two companies have always had a strong support from the publicsector, especially from the Generalitat, as it can be seen in the discretionary subsidies ofone and a half million euros that the Catalan government granted for the merging of ElPunt and Avui, and one million euros for the launching of Ara a decade ago.It is relevant, however, that Ara refused to disseminate the advertising of 1-O illegalreferendum, which, by contrast, was featured in the pages of El Punt Avui. One possibleexplanation for this different behavior regarding such relevant event is Ara’s greater financialbacking from its main shareholders, who have granted participating loans to thepublisher covering almost all of its non-current liabilities. Although it should be noted thatmost of the partners of Edició de Premsa Periòdica Ara are funded by the public coffersin different ways, its current majority shareholder, Ferran Rodés, is also a shareholder ofMedia Planning, one of the agencies systematically assigned to manage the Generalitat’sinstitutional campaigns.All in all, we are faced with two examples of media capture by the political power.It is clear that the survival of these journalistic projects –one of them, Catalonia Today,launched by former president of the Catalan Government, Carles Puigdemont, and nowrun by his wife is not only due to business logic. It is also obvious that, for example, theincome figures for institutional advertising of El Punt Avui and Ara are not proportionalto their audience, neither in print nor in digital, with the former being clearly the biggestbeneficiary of the two. This, in turn, raises serious doubts about the general criteria forplanning public advertising, a very opaque procedure that governments can easily useas an instrument of pressure, especially in times of crisis like the present time.Studies on transfers of public funds to media companies in other Spanish autonomousregions are needed to determine if the financial dependence of media companieson political decisions at any given time is a generalized practice.
Classification-JEL: R1
Keywords: Política de Medios, Subvenciones, Publicidad Institucional, Economía de Los Grupos de Comunicación, Cataluña, Media Policies, Subsidies, Institucional Advertising, Economics of Media Groups, Catalonia
Pages: 171-193
Volume: 3
Year: 2023
File-URL: http://www.revistaestudiosregionales.com/documentos/articulos/pdf-articulo-2660.pdf
File-Format: Application/pdf
Handle: RePEc:rer:articu:v:3:y:2023:p:171-193