President Javier Milei took office vowing to sell off Argentina’s state media outlets, but how is his plan going?
“In the long run, there is no doubt that the intention was and is to privatise state media,” said a source at TV Pública.
The source recalled that the original version of President Milei’s sweeping ‘Ley de Bases’ reform bill sought to include Radio y Televisión Argentina (Radio Nacional and TV Pública, what was formerly known as Canal 7) as “subject to privatisation.” But in its quest to win the necessary votes in Congress, the Executive Branch gave in and had to strip it from the list.
However, in the subsequent months, content production has been hollowed out and workers have been pushed out, whether via voluntary redundancy schemes or below-market wages. There’s even been an attempt to sell off the most successful programmes to private companies.
One thing is for certain: without a law, Javier Milei’s government cannot sell off state media outlets. Rodolfo Barra, Argentina's Treasury attorney and a privatisation expert during the era of former president Carlos Menem, had to clarify that fact to Milei.
The plan
Javier Milei and his sister, presidential chief-of-staff Karina Milei, have entrusted to Presidential Spokesman Manuel Adorni a task: to reduce the number of employees at Radio Nacional, TV Pública, and Contenidos Públicos (Pakapaka, Canal Encuentro and DeporTV) by half.
The plan imitates the voluntary retirement scheme implemented at Télam, which went from having 770 employees to 350. Nearly 500 employees from RTA have already taken redundancies and there have also been some dismissals, but the La Libertad Avanza administration does not intend to carry on in this way.
In total, RTA employees number over 2,400, including staff at the 49 radio stations from across the country. The offer made by Eduardo González, the state media auditor appointed in February this year, is poor in financial terms.
“Collective bargaining [offers] have also been worse than any other agreement at private television channels and nobody wants voluntary retirement. There are plenty of people who, after working for so many years, deserve better,” the source told Perfil.
‘Lack of neutrality’
Via a resolution published in the Official Gazette, signed by President Milei and then-Interior minister (now Cabinet Chief) Guillermo Francos, an audit of Argentina’s state media outlets got underway. It called for greater “efficiency” and a lowering of expenditure.
For Adorni, however, officials have been frustrated by a “lack of neutrality” and “the abundance of Kirchnerite ideology,” as he stated at a recent press conference.
This could be one of the reasons why – as opposed to making decisions that would deliver savings for state coffers – the government has preferred to move ahead with the elimination of a large part of TV Pública’s programming.
The headline removal was the long-running show Cocineros Argentinos, though management itself acknowledged that the show was not loss-making. It could also explain why the national government continued to broadcast Argentina's matches from the recent Copa América, though it did so with advertisements sold by Telefé.
“Programming is unstable – there are days when it falls because they don't want to pay extra for working on feriados (“bank holidays),” said one source.
Relaunch?
Failed attempts to “privatise” programming or to seek external financing have forced the government’s hand: it has decided to activate a general “relaunch” of state media outlets.
The newly created Agencia de Publicidad del Estado Sociedad Anónima (APESA) state advertising agency, which will be run by 100 ex-Télam employees at its former offices in Buenos Aires City, is a key part of this and will be a producer of journalistic and artistic content.
There will also be the relaunch of iconic PakaPaka programmes such as Zamba,” where the government made use of Children’s Day to announce its return with an ironic image of the character, together with a cartoon version of José de San Martín, saying: “Now we’re free, can we start over?”
There will also be reinforcements to help with sports programming on TV Pública (following the success of the Olympics – the state channel beat all competitors in the ratings)with workers from DeporTV, as well as a million-dollar investment to pair programmes with famous personalities.
Another idea in the works, which has now been dropped, was to create ‘RTA Noticias,’ but the government has U-turned on that.
Despite numerous attempts to communicate with government officials about the future of state media, Perfil received no answer.
The plan, it seems, is up in the air.
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