They say there is no nothing sadder than a clown crying. When this Wednesday, moments after confirming Broncano’s hiring by RTVE, we called him by phone, the comedian, extremely serious, was kind enough to pick up. He spoke little and seemed very tense. He barely managed to utter three sentences. She said that she was finding out from Informalia that the RTVE Board had approved his signing. He explained that he would talk when he found out everything. And he thanked us when we conveyed our congratulations to him for having signed the contract of a lifetime for him: 28 million euros for two seasons, even if he has an insane audience.
Broncano hardly spoke but his voice told us that he was uncomfortable. We meet a very serious comedian. To a sad, cold, tense clown. His tone had nothing to do with the one we are used to observing in The resistance. I wasn’t relaxed, I wasn’t fun. He refused to even tell us if he was happy, he just repeated that he wanted to find out everything and that he would talk later. “We don’t want to know how much sex you have had or how much money you have in your account. “They are simpler questions,” we half-jokingly say, imitating his two emblematic questions in The resistance, to degrease. But David Broncano did not have the courage to enter the scene, and he did not uncover that funny verbiage that has made him the richest comedian on the national scene. “Thanks but no,” he managed to say with polite coldness.
The leak of the secret operation that they manufactured between Moncloa and TVE
It was in mid-February when a source of proven solvency explained to us that TVE wanted to sign Broncano and that the matter was a personal effort by Pedro Sánchez, who wanted to put the comedian on La 1, after Telediario, to weaken the media power of Pablo Motos, whom he considers the worst of his media enemies, since he registers a colossal audience daily.
The headline of the exclusive published that February 28 read: Pedro Sánchez wants David Broncano on TVE after the Telediario to deactivate Pablo Motos. We had already spoken with three different sources; one of them, close to the Secretary of State for Communication of Francés Valles, who had been working for weeks to give his young man the desired whim. Another source, close to the RTVE presidency, even corroborated Moncloa’s conversations with Elena Sánchez to explain the anti-Hormiguero plan. A third informant confirmed, from around the Movistar Plus+ Board, that the motto was “not to put up too much resistance to retain Broncano on the Telefónica platform if RTVE tried to take La Resistencia”, a joke included. It is not advisable to get on bad terms with Moncloa in this sector. The information said that Spanish Television was negotiating a mega contract with Broncano to boot him from Movistar Plus + and that he was going to get ahead “in one way or another” because it was “a personal endeavor of Pedro Sánchez.”
Ten days after dropping the bomb from Informalia, another media published that the contract had been closed. It was a lie, as it turned out later. That same medium, in addition, ignored the importance of this matter in its first approaches: the political operation that was behind the controversial signing, a cacicada who later became the main cover of several national general newspapers. But the soap opera is not over.
The councilors opposed to the signing are studying challenging the hiring
Close the controversial and millionaire signing of Broncano will mobilize large public funds that are not intended to strengthen RTVE nor provide it with a strong audience. Nor is the contract of the comedian as a public service justified: rather, it is about serving partisan interests. For this reason, voices have already risen that seriously consider the possibility that we are facing a case of unfair administration. In addition, some councilors study in detail the report from the State Attorney’s Office that allowed Cascajosa to use her casting vote as president even though it was designed for cases of a tie, which did not happen. The Council therefore has grounds to challenge her appointment.
The previous president preferred to be removed before agreeing to carry out Moncloa’s mandate and, according to our sources, she did so for fear of being involved in a murky matter of accounting responsibility. Article 252 of the Penal Code states that “members of a collegiate body may incur that, by action or omission, they allow the entity to sign contracts that are unbalanced or detrimental to the interests of the entity they manage.” There is also civil liability for the members of an administrative body: “They are subject to this type of accounting liability for the decisions they make that affect public funds.”
This Wednesday, the signing of Broncano received the approval with a debatable vote of four councilors in favor of the hiring, three against and one abstention. The Council also approved with the casting vote of the president of the public entity the purchase of That’s my jam for 4.5 million euros, the program LACOproductora, the production company of José Miguel Contreras, Director of Content at Prisa Media. The Council has ten seats: there is a vacancy due to the resignation of Pérez Tornero, the president who preceded Elena Sánchez, who was absent again from this extraordinary council.
The SEPI and the State Attorney’s Office protect the validity of Cascajosa’s casting vote
This Wednesday’s vote in the Board of Directors was uncertain. The a priori situation was identical to that of the previous week: four votes in favor, three against and one abstention. But this time the State Society of Industrial Partitions (SEPI) and the State Attorney’s Office supported Cascajosa to resort to the casting vote, which he decides in the event of a tie. But there was no tie.
The reports from both bodies of the Government, if eight councilors presented themselves – as happened this Wednesday – and there was a tie of four to four – including abstentions and null votes –, the president could use the casting vote as long as their vote was in favor and, therefore, unblocking the contract. This achieved what the RTVE Statute requires to carry out audiovisual projects of the magnitude of Broncano’s: absolute majority, that is, five votes from the Council. Last week, Cascajosa paralyzed the voting on the La Resistencia contract and the rest of the audiovisual projects due to “legal security” as there was no tie, since one of the votes, that of the councilor at the proposal of the PCE (Sumar), José Manuel Martín Medem, It was an abstention. The president asked the SEPI and the State Attorney’s Office if it could be considered a tie and the bodies claimed yes. Cascajosa had the support of Roberto Lakidain (Unidas Podemos), Juan José Baños (PNV) and Ramón Colom (PSOE). PP councilors Carmen Sastre, Jenaro Castro and Consuelo Aparicio voted no. And Medem (PC) abstained again.
The three councilors of the PP and the one of the PC, that is, all those who have not voted yes, They are going to analyze whether the report from the State Attorney’s Office that has validated the casting vote with three votes against and one abstention against four in favor, it complies with the RTVE Statutes. The report requested and created ad hoc for this situation establishes that an abstention or a null vote can lead to a tie.
The contract in question covers two seasons – from September 2024 to July 2025 and from September 2025 to July 2026 (with a Christmas break). During the first year and a half, TVE cannot cancel the program even if no one watches it. There is no cut-off clause. It will remain in prime time access during that time without the possibility of canceling it or moving it to another slot. Once those 18 months pass, the cut-off clause will force Broncano to make a screen share of no less than 7.5% on average (now it is two points above). If in the first year and a half the program does not achieve acceptable audience ratings, it would affect Marta Carazo’s Telediario, which will reduce its broadcast time by between 25 or 10 minutes. Each season will consist of about 160 episodes to be broadcast from Monday to Thursday, each lasting between 70 and 80 minutes. Each episode costs 90,000 euros: a total of 28 million euros for the two seasons.
The reputational cost suffered by RTVE with this soap opera is immense
But regardless of how the program works and the cost to the public coffers, the reputational cost suffered by RTVE with this soap opera is immense. Let us not forget that the scandal has taken away the previous interim president, Elena Sánchez, the Director of Content, José Pablo López and the Secretary of the Council. It is not necessary for Broncano to act as Pedro Sánchez’s media bully. In fact, the purely political content of comedian shows is null or practically non-existent. The propaganda move or the strategy of Francés Vallés, Secretary of State for Communication, It is based on subtracting power or net audience from Pablo Motos, considered an uncomfortable scourge of Sanchismo.
LinkedinBeloud