External audit reveals RTVE's lack of budgetary control


Details

Juan Fernandez Gonzalez

| 12 March 2016




Spanish public broadcaster RTVE has shown a lack of control over its finances according to an external audit.



rtve sedeThe entire document has been published on filtrala.org, a Spanish platform shared by four newspapers – eldiario.es, Diagonal, Mongolia and La Marea – and analyses RTVE's budget and accounts from 2014.

The 228-page audit shows how the broadcaster spend nearly €24 million on Spanish films, but over half of the titles have never been aired. Due to a lack of interest from the target audience, they “probably won't ever be on schedule,” said the document.

Even though RTVE has a workforce of some 6,000 professionals, the public, free-to-air (FTA) network hasn't accomplished the goals for in-house production, turning to external and private companies too often, said the report. Only 32% of entertainment shows were produced by the broadcaster, far from the required 55%.

The cost of sports production grew by almost 40% in 2014, reaching €129 million due to Winter Olympics broadcasting and a new rights agreement with Spain's national team. However, the audit points out that the expensive sports programming was usually broadcast on Teledeporte, a secondary, themed network with low audiences figures.

Regarding human resources, the research shows a 7% reduction in executive staff, but “limits of interns and temporary workers are exceeded". Employees' average annual salary for the year was €47,000, far above the average public salary (€35,400).

The document also points to several accounting mistakes, like not reporting €9 million in income from sponsorships as revenue in order to avoid advertising restrictions.

These and other issues may be behind RTVE's structural deficit, which is continuously fuelling the broadcaster's debt since ads were banned from the TV network in 2010.