It's no coincidence that, coinciding with the figures for the month of March which show that Catalan public channel TV3 is the most-watched in Catalonia for the eighth month running (with an audience share close to 15% and a difference of more than five points to the channel in second place), once again two newspapers from the capital's press, El País and ABC, should publish on their front pages and inside identical attacks against the station and should accuse it of bias and manipulation. Nor that they should overlook that, in the third month of the year, TV3 achieved an all-time record in qualitative ratings, according to GfK, with a score of 8.5 out of 10, something which no generalist channel had achieved before.
That the supposed journalistic works lack rigour is irrelevant, and in any case they show the ideological bias of the media publishing it, as it's absolutely fair to criticise a media outlet, whether public or private, although those formulating this criticism have many reasons to keep quiet, as their audiences have done nothing but shrink in recent years. What is more debatable is that the two papers are taking part in an operation which only aims to close the public TV channel because it's the favourite among Catalans and its news bulletins lead in all editions, with more than 25% audience share on average.
For a long time now, TV3 has been the media battle field the Spanish right is clearly trying to win. When the application of article 155 of the Spanish Constitution was brought up, control of TV3 and public radio channel Catalunya Ràdio were on the table for many in the Moncloa government palace, but PSOE's opposition and the worry towards an unknown reaction from the Catalan professionals had a dissuasive effect. The government has already expressed regret in public over that decision a number of times and has proposed plans to control programming if there are new Catalan elections.
Ultimately, both for PP and for Ciudadanos, and to a lesser extent for PSC, the topics of the public media and the language are closely linked and they believe that without taking action on both they won't be able to revert the current situation. Also, TV3 and Catalunya Ràdio are necessary for the new narrative of media manipulation towards violence in Catalonia and the existence of latent kale borroka urban violence in Catalan streets to take hold. The new mantra needs Catalan megaphones to spread it since, so far, the violence has come from the extreme right, as in the recent fire at Ateneu de Sarrià and the Nazi and fascist graffiti.