The Consell de Mallorca gives the green light to the closure of RTVM

The plenary session of the Consell de Mallorca has approved, with the votes of the PP, to begin the procedures for the end of the activity of Radio and Television of Mallorca (RTVM), which will mean the first closure of a public entity of these characteristics in Spain.

Based on its high cost, the Popular Party, as it defended in its electoral campaign, has given the starting signal for the closure of Radio and Television of Mallorca (RTVM).

The plenary session of the Consell de Mallorca approved yesterday, with the support of the 19 councilors of the PP and the votes against of the 13 of the PSOE and PSM, to begin the procedures to close Radio and Television of Mallorca (RTVM), which will mark the first closure of a public entity of these characteristics in Spain.

Its closure will lead to the dismissal of around 115 workers from an organization that, for the PSOE, is “budgetary viable.” In addition to these layoffs, the closure would affect about 40 service and production companies on the island.

The PP government team, for its part, supports the closure with four arguments: its high economic cost, the duplication of services it entails, the need to address other more urgent actions and its “little social impact.”

The PSOE estimates the cost of closing RTVM between 6 and 9 million, of which around 2 million correspond to the ERE that will affect workers, 2 more to the termination of contracts with suppliers, between 1 and 2 million that the possible closure of other companies will cost the public coffers and between 1.5 and 2 million the cost for the Social Security of unemployed workers.

Six years of history

Ràdio i Televisió de Mallorca was created at the end of 2005 by bringing together Ona Mallorca and the new television TV Mallorca and collecting the heritage of eleven local television stations that existed in Mallorca before 2006. The local television stations became part of a network of correspondents that has been progressively expanding.

On November 7, 2005, the Plenary Session of the Consell de Mallorca, definitively approved unanimously the statutes and the constitution of the new television, under the formula of the local commercial company Ràdio i Televisió de Mallorca, SA, for the provision of the public radio and television service of the Consell de Mallorca. Ràdio i Televisió de Mallorca was born, which includes TV Mallorca and the public radio of the Consell de Mallorca: Ona Mallorca.

On May 10, 2006, test broadcasts began and on September 11, its full programming began, with a predominance of its own content. Since 2006 it has been incorporating new content: weekend news in February 2007, fiction series, movies and broadcasts of sporting events at the end of 2007.

Since June 2009 it has been broadcasting digitally with coverage of 98% of the population of Mallorca.