Editorial, 27 April 2022
The CCMA today dismisses a director who ignored the fact that Parliament rejected his appointment five years ago and who is leaving marked by incompatibilities and by his support to the continuous “whore Spain” that was heard on this channel.
On 13 March 2017, Vicent Sanchis was appointed director of TV3 by the governing council of the Catalan Corporation of Audiovisual Media (CCMA), at the proposal of the then president of the Generalitat, Artur Mas, following the forced resignation of his predecessor, Jaume Peral. The TV3 Workers’ Assembly, convened by the Workers’ Committee and the Professional Council, called for the resignation of the members of the CCMA following this decision. “The sudden hand-picked appointment of the current director of TVC puts back on the table the endemic problem of the control of public media by the government parties, which seriously undermines the credibility of TVC”, wrote the Assembly in the manifesto “TV3, plural and for all”.
On 6 April, the Parliament approved the reprobation of Sanchis’ appointment. Only 60 MPs from Junts pel Sí voted in favour, while 73 MPs from Ciudadanos, PSC, PP, CUP and Catalunya Sí que Es Pot voted against. The latter group was the one that presented the motion, which urged the CCMA to consider other candidacies. Neither the CCMA considered other candidacies, nor did Vicent Sanchis bat an eyelid. Throughout his term of office, he has recalled that he did not care if the representatives of the Catalan people reproved him because this did not lead to his dismissal. Eleven days after his appointment, he appeared in Parliament and said that “I have not come to TVC to be a fanatic or a hooligan of anyone” and I hope that “it will not be the television of the pro-processors”. And he has done exactly that: a fanatical television, a hooligan of the pro-independence movement, and at the service of the pro-Catalan government.
He has taken the partisanship of TV3, which has always been accused of favouring the government of the day, to the extreme. He has managed to stop non-independent Catalans from following it. TV3’s audience in the working class populations of the Barcelona metropolitan area is at an all-time low. It is hard to find a bar in Cornellà or Santa Coloma de Gramanet that has it on unless it is broadcasting a Barça football match. Millions of Catalans who feel Spanish or do not hate Spain have had to put up with Sanchis’ television for years insulting them. “Puta España” has been a slogan present in several programmes that the Valencian director has protected with his particular vision of freedom of expression on public television.
He has made personal bets with programmes such as Toni Soler’s ‘Està passant’ and Mediapro’s FAQS, to promote independence with the excuse of humour in the first case and exclusive news in the second, which are unlikely to continue next season. He has maintained numbing programmes such as ‘Més 324’, because it was in tune with the pro-independence ideology of its presenter. He has found it appropriate that the talk shows of ‘Més 324’ and the rest of the house programmes have two or three separatist guests for every one that is not, and he has filled the programme with documentaries favourable to the pro-processist cause.
He has maintained its audience leadership almost every month thanks to ‘telenotícies’ that must be watched by anyone interested in what is happening in Catalonia or who wants to know what the temperature will be the next day, or to see images of sports competitions with Catalan representatives, because no other television station does this. And he has closed his period marked by the scandal of his incompatibilities in the exercise of his position. He came to TV3 from the deputy directorate of the digital ‘El Món’. This media is owned by the company Comunicació Vinària, of which Vicent Sanchis is a shareholder. He is also deputy administrator since 24 December 2019 and since January of this year the company pays him 1000 euros for the rent of an office he owns. The law that regulates the incompatibilities regime for people who hold high positions in the Generalitat prohibits them from holding any in private companies and 10% or more of the shares of companies that contract with public administrations. Sanchis stated in his Declaration of Assets as a high-ranking official of the Generalitat that he held 10% of the shares of Comunicació Vinària. When EL TRIANGLE published that this was incompatible with directing TV3, he rectified his declaration, stated that he had 9.8% of the shares and said that he had made a mistake. And about the fact of being an alternate administrator of Comunicació Vinària, he said that it was a position of no effective importance.
Sanchis will be dismissed today, leaving behind a TV3 that has fallen into anthropological provincialism despite the efforts of the good journalists in the international section to give a more professional and open image to the world. He is 61 years old. After the embarrassment of being replaced prematurely because the new management of the CCMA does not want to sit next to him in the Control Commission of the Parliament to this organism, his future goes through the return to ‘El Món’ of which he has not ceased to be a shareholder or the jump to Mediapro, the production company of Jaume Roures and Tatxo Benet, to which he has done so many favours during the five saddest and most partisan years of the history of TV3.
https://www.eltriangle.eu/es/2022/04/27/adios-a-vicent-sanchis-y-a-su-tv3-sectaria-y-provinciana/
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