by The adjustment in Public TV spending will make can’t be seen for free the soccer matches of the South American U-23 Pre-Olympic Championship, which starts this weekend in Venezuela and will give two places for the Paris Olympic Games.
According to official sources consulted by ClarionThe negotiation with Conmebol was bogged down because Radio and Television Argentina (RTA, the company that manages Public TV) is not willing to pay the rights to broadcast the U-23 matches. While DirecTV bought those rights to broadcast them through its sports channel Dsports.
On Wednesday he arrived in Caracas the team led by Javier Mascheranowith Thiago Almada, Valentín Barco and the little devil Echeverri, among its main figures, in an area that will compete with Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile and Peru.
Their first game will be this Sunday, at 8 pm against Paraguay.. And the day before, the Pre-Olympic Championship begins – the last edition of which was won by Argentina – with the match between Ecuador and Colombia.
“The Pre-Olympic is likely not to be broadcast by Public TV, although Negotiations will continue until the last moment.“said a source from the state channel to Clarion.
And I add: “There is the intention to broadcast the Olympic Games and the Copa Américaif a budget balance is achieved that compensates the cost of the transmission with the advertising that is obtained to pay for it, although it is an issue that is a little distant for the emergencies that the current management has in RTA,” an official source told Clarion.
Public TV is applying a policy of strong adjustment in spending, to reduce the deficit inherited from the management of Rosario Lufrano in the state company Radio and Television Argentina (RTA), which By 2023 it had skyrocketed above $20 billion.
This year started with the suspension of traditional mobile phones on the Atlantic Coast and the midnight and weekend newscasts of Public TV, as well as a deep cut in the overtime of the channel’s employees, in the co-productions of programs and in the transmission of the provinces’ Festivals.
In fact, the current management decided to broadcast several summer festivals that take place in the provinces, like every year, but this time. Public TV is not going to send teams of drivers, producers or technicians. Nor are they going to pay for the upload of the audiovisual signal to the satellite.
“We are negotiating with each festival, so that each one assumes the production and distribution expenses. We only send a producer and take the signal that each festival produces,” he told Clarion a channel source.
They proposed the same scheme to Conmebol to broadcast the Pre-Olympic, from Venezuela. But until now they have not had an official response and the signals that came from there are negative, so everything indicates that Public TV will not broadcast those U-23 soccer matches.
Instead, for the Olympic Games and the Copa AméricaPublic TV’s plan is to put together a business plan that compensates the cost that the transmission rights could have with the advertising that could be raised in both sporting events, in order to make a better offer than that of the Pre-Olympic.
The Copa América will start on next June 20 and will be played in several cities in the United States, where Argentina will defend the champion title it achieved at the Maracaná in 2021. And the Olympic Games will be held from July 26 to August 11in Paris, France, with 32 sports that will participate in the Olympic calendar.
