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Colombia. The eight regional channels of Colombia issued a joint statement through which they want to warn about the future of regional public television from the financial and administrative level. They express their concern that to insist that regional public television must generate profits is to condemn it in a very short time to its disappearance.
The document, signed by the managers of the channels Teleantioquia, Telecaribe, Telepacífico, Canal Capital, Canal 13, Telecafé, Teleislas and Canal TRO, calls for the results of regional public television to be evaluated from the fulfillment of its purposes and principles, with parameters of social and non-commercial profitability.
These are the points of the statement:
1. For public television, viewers are citizens rather than consumers, and consequently their contents seek the promotion of social and democratic values
2. Given its nature, the purpose of public television in the world is not designed to generate profits, but to contribute to the construction of citizenship and consolidation of democracy.
3. Public television in the world is subsidized by states, because its function is framed in the construction of citizenship and the visibility of minorities.
4. The culture of a country and the role of public television cannot be measured by accounting records. It is called to meet the demands of citizen participation. However, the one we lead in Colombia complies with the legal parameters in legal and financial matters.
5. Public television constructs its discourse outside the commercial imperatives of the advertising pattern.
6. The experience of commercial television shows that audiences are conquered based on large proposals and formats that do not build values and society. For its part, regional public television is based on a social service and builds its discourse on inclusion and democracy.
7. The regions demand television content with its own language that speaks of its reality, however its advertising market is not enough to finance the operation, production and operation. Despite the financial support that has been generated in the last two (2) years, it is still not enough for the purposes outlined.
8. When the Colombian State authorized the privatization of television, it did so under the scheme that compensation and taxes be invested in the promotion and strengthening of public television (Law 182 of 1995).
9. The financing model of regional public television is different from commercial television, in that it does not live on advertising, but receives direct resources from the State and for the provision of services to public entities.
10. We do not know today that any regional channel is in liquidation or bankruptcy.
