RTVE Director Castillejo calls for national plan for digital radio

11.03.2024 by Ángel García Castillejo

English text of speech by Ángel García Castillejo, RTVE's Director of Audiovisual Policies, Public Service and International, at the launch of DAB+ broadcasts in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Murcia and Bilbao on World Radio Day, 13 February 2024.

If we are not able to offer DAB+, they are not going to come to the radio, radio will disappear
RNE has an obligation as providers of public service radio broadcasting and as members of the radio family, to walk this path
We need a new national technical plan for digital radio where the whole radio sector feels comfortable to evolve to this new offer

"Good morning to you all.

These are days that we at Radio Televisión Española believe to be historic moments in the audiovisual sector.

I cannot fail to thank the colleagues, friends, public employees, civil servants of the State Secretariat for Telecommunications who have quietly been working incredibly hard. Sometimes the digitisation of the audiovisual sector over many years is not sufficiently recognised in the field of innovation.

We managed to switch off analogue television in 2010. It cost us. We stumbled. We started in the case of television (DTT) with a pay-TV model. It failed. But we were able to pick ourselves up and restart with an open, plural, diverse offer, as Tomás, the director of Radio 3, used to say. With diverse, varied, more segmented content like DTT, aimed at our audiences, culminating this process in 2010.

We had experienced failures, as was the case in other European countries. As in the case of the United Kingdom, with the failure of its pay-TV platform. As was also the case in our experience, despite the good efforts of its protagonists.

Therefore, our thanks to the Secretary of State, not only as an institution, but also to the people who work there. There are many of you. And some have unfortunately fallen by the wayside over the years. That is life. And also to our travelling companion, to our essential partner, to the one who provides us with the support for the transport and broadcasting of television and radio signals, which is Cellnex Telecom. It is a must. We take risks on a shared basis and therefore, our thanks and my personal thanks.

But especially on a day like today, World Radio Day, which also marks the centenary of radio in Spain, our thanks go to all radio workers. And today in particular to the workers of Radio Televisión Española and especially to those of Radio Nacional de España: Radio Nacional, Radio 3, Radio 5, Radio Clásica, Radio Exterior de España and Radio 4 in Catalonia. To all those who work in the field of radio, also in other digital environments, producing podcasts, broadcasting them through RTVE Play. But let's not forget: the main protagonist, the initial source of the audio sector, is the radio.

"It is a day not to look back with nostalgia to the past, but above all, to make up for lost time."

And, if I may say so, we are talking about the future. We are talking about digital radio and the innovations that technology brings us. And if we combine this with the fact that we are celebrating the centenary of radio in Spain, it is a day not to look back with nostalgia to the past, but to learn, as I have said, from our mistakes. And, above all, to make up for lost time. We have lost too much time, too much. We have behaved irresponsibly as a country.

Allow me to tell you a personal anecdote. In 2013, there were three of us, probably sharing the same illusions and from different positions: myself (at that time I was a director at the Telecommunications Market Commission, at the regulator), together with Alfonso Ruiz de Asín, secretary general of the Spanish Association of Commercial Broadcasting, and Javier Sánchez Pérez, who was the person who at that time and to this day has been most concerned about the migration from analogue to digital radio at Radiotelevisión Española, at Radio Nacional de España. The three of us went together in good company to the IFA, to Berlin. It was probably one of the most important technological fairs in the audiovisual sector. And for me, from the perspective of the regulator at the time, who was passionate about and involved in the audiovisual sector, I was tremendously struck by the shortfall that I saw our country was experiencing there. There I was able to see how in the rest of Europe DAB and DAB+ were becoming a reality, while in Spain we were experiencing stagnation.

Therefore, I believe that we have been doing a grave injustice to Spanish citizens. And that on this path, on this path of evolution and innovation, there are no more excuses.

"If we are not able to offer the DAB+ service, they are not going to come to the radio. If we are not able to take those steps, radio will disappear. There are no more excuses."

Ten years ago, some people's excuse was that there were no receivers. And without receivers, there was no content. It was a vicious circle. If we are not able to offer the DAB+ service, if we are not able to offer innovative content that attracts those sectors of the population that, if we don't offer them what they are looking for and what they want to hear, they are not going to come to the radio. And they will go to other areas, let's not fool ourselves. If we are not able to take those steps, radio will disappear. There are no more excuses.

If we are not capable of being strong where we are already present today, which is in radio broadcasting, if all of us who are part of the radio family are not capable of offering more and better radio, we will end up in an internet world. But we will end up, and I repeat a phrase we put forward barely a year ago, diluting like drops of water in the ocean of the internet. We will be one offer among millions of video and audio offers, let's not fool ourselves.

"We have an obligation as Radio Nacional de España, as providers of public service radio broadcasting, to walk this path. We have no interest in taking this step alone."

We have to be on our phones. And of course we have to be on our computer screens, on our tablets and on any device. But we have an obligation as Radio Nacional de España, as providers of public service radio broadcasting and as members of the radio family, to walk this path. And, if possible, not alone. We have no interest in taking this step alone. We want to count on the company of the big and the small, with the rest of the public and private sectors, at the state level, with stations with which we already share the experience of DAB+ (such as Radio María).

And hopefully with the rest of the great traditional broadcasters in our country, such as Onda Cero, SER and COPE. With all of them. The more we are, the more plural and diverse we are, the stronger we will be. And we will make this country much bigger, much more mature and much more democratic. A country to be proud of. But, of course, and today, as I have already said, there is no more room for excuses. In particular, public service radio has an obligation to be where our potential listeners are. Just because of the number of vehicle registrations in our country.

It is a constant in my life to do homework. To give homework to the administration. Because the administration somehow represents all of us. And we have to demand that it works for all of us as citizens. We cannot allow that if there are devices we are not there. We have the obligation to go wherever there is a receiver from which we can be heard. We cannot allow that space to be used illegitimately by those who do not have the necessary qualifications and who are robbing us of the possibility of using the space that is legitimately assigned to us and planned by the public administration.

Therefore, we cannot allow the phenomenon of piracy, which is spreading every day, to be perpetuated and maintained to the scorn and shame of the world. And let us hope that it does not end up being consolidated in the field of radio broadcasting.

We cannot afford to keep moving into the future by constantly looking in the rear-view mirror. We will crash if we only look in the rear-view mirror as we move forward. If we really want to look to the future, we cannot afford to keep wasting energy. To continue to look in the rear-view mirror with technologies that are already obsolete and are heard by less than 1% of the Spanish population, such as medium wave. We have to start to seriously consider switching off medium wave. Medium wave in Spain today is considered a critical infrastructure in the event of disasters and emergency situations. And that must evolve to FM and towards DAB+, which is the future. Which is actually where we are going to find ourselves and where we are going to have to overcome in emergency situations of real danger. Where we are going to be able to find the information. Where we are going to be able to really inform all citizens, because the internet service goes down immediately in those cases.

"We cannot continue to look in the rear-view mirror. We need a new national technical plan for digital radio"

We cannot continue to look in the rear-view mirror. We need, and I believe that this is the challenge where the whole radio sector has a common denominator, a new national technical plan for digital radio, where we can somehow redress the mistakes made in the past and where the whole radio sector feels comfortable to evolve to this new offer that is closer and more appropriate to the reality that our listeners, the Spanish citizens, are demanding of us today.

And from there, I would just like to say congratulations to all of you who make radio possible, those of you who allow us to go to bed and get up every day and live when we go to work in the car or go to the radio, to be informed, that our constitutional right to information, to real communication on a day-to-day, minute-by-minute basis.

And therefore, thank you very much to all of you who make radio possible. And, of course, to all of you who listen to it.

Thank you."