By Bryn McClay
Teresa Guitart, head of International Relations and Sales at TV3, tells visitors that it’s not a usual TV station. TV3 is the only station dedicated solely to the Catalan people of Spain.
International Media students visited Catalan’s main TV station, TV3. TV3 is the primary television channel of Catalan public broadcaster Televisio de Catalunya. Its main purpose is to offer news, current affairs, and self-produced series and documentaries to the Catalan population in Spain. TV3 has three buildings in order to develop its programming with five different studios for TV shows.
TV3 first broadcasted on Sept.11, 1983, the national holiday of Catalan. In order to stay competitive with other stations TV3 knew it had to pick up popular TV shows, and it selected “Dallas.” Another big hit for TV3 is the soap opera “La Riera,” an original show created by TV3 staff. This soap opera receives 24 percent of its shares in the TV market.
Although some people do speak a different language, the Catalonian population in Spain is about 7 million and 90 percent of Spain speaks Catalan. Due to the fact that all regions of Spain have their own governments, the Catalan government felt it needed its own mass media station to address the Catalonian people. It broadcasts solely in Catalan.
TV3 is free to all people because 70 percent is government funded and advertising funds the other 30. Because of the recession in Spain, TV3 had to bring its budget down 40 percent, but that station was still able to stay the number one network, Guitart said. Unlike the United States, TV3’s commercials stay respectful, which has a lot to do with government funding. They also show better programs, not reality shows.
“We want to show customers more quality programs,” Guitart said.
TV3 features genres such as news, fiction and sports. The station broadcasts the morning show first, news during the day and at night different soap operas. TV3 has a children’s channel called Super 3 and sports channel called Futbol e 3. All of the shows are available in HD TV and are available on the Internet. Unlike many other mass media broadcasters, TV3 can be seen everywhere. Its six top channels hold 80 percent of the entire audience for TV3, whereas other networks only have five top channels.
The children’s station broadcasts Japanese animation, or manga, as well as “Tom and Jerry” because there is an agreement with Warner. TV3’s kid’s club now has over 1 million members and continues to grow.
“We died of success,” Guitart said of the kid’s club.
It also offers entertainment programs Monday through Friday at 9 p.m. with different shows each week, targeted to adults.
According to Ferran Molines, head of image and producing for marketing at TV3, his team hand creates all of the images or logos for the different channels. They work with Final Cut Pro and four different post-production studios for its promotional materials. Not only do they work with one another but also they work with companies outside of the station sometimes to get some help and more ideas. Molines works with 25 to 30 people a week to create over 30 different promos.
TV3’s logo has been around for so long now that Molines said the station management sees no reason to change it due to its popularity. The current logo has remained unchanged for 10 years, but it started out as a three with a flag and has evolved since then.