We learn today that the regional broadcaster (owned by the Junta de Andalucia) Canal Sur lost a whopping 72,300 euros a day, or in total, 26.4 million euros last year.
Of course, we start off with it costing Andalucia 118 million euros, before we get to the “losses”.In a country where the politicians don’t mind in advance admitting they’re running things at a loss, it’s still 4,4 million more than was expected.
On the one hand, income from ads dropped by 26% – they only took in 16.5 million euros from ads.
And on the other, they spent more on staff – 2.6 million more than last year. They spent, in fact, a whopping 83.9 million euros on wages.
The Junta de Andalucia underwrites the first 118 million euros “operating budget” of the broadcaster. (That’s our tax money, by the way). A further 26.949.766,82 euros was paid for out of tax payers money for unpaid bills from past years that, since they haven’t been settled, get paid for by the government. 
The company is actually called RTVA (Radio Television de Andalucia) and operated Canal Sur TV and the radio stations. It’s owned by the Junta de Andalucia (read: PSOE party) and is spectacularly biased towards their paymasters. I only have it on for the carnavales de Cádiz.
The company took the surprising decision a couple of years ago to close Canal Sur TV-2, the second TV channel, but kept the programmes and the frequencies. So I doubt they saved much at all. Canal Sur 2 is now just Canal Sur 1, but with a woman in the corner signing for the deaf. They kept Canal Sur HD. Why?
The woman in the corner is, at times, just one step up from that bloke at Nelson Mandela’s funeral. Complaints about her (and her friends, it’s not just one person of course) include her shouting to off-camera people, and “getting distracted” during the signing. They had 29 complaints in the first week saying that people couldn’t see the screen because of the layout.
Anyway. More millions wasted, promoting the PSOE party with our (my) tax money. :p