The second vice president and Minister of the Presidency, José Díez, has defended the broadcast of bullfighting events on public radio and television À Punt and has maintained that the viewership data for the bullfights "demonstrate that they interest Valencians". He did so in response to criticism from PSPV deputy, Mercedes Caballero, who accused the Consell of "turning it into a disinformation medium".
During the plenary session of Les Corts this Thursday, the socialist parliamentarian denounced that the modifications promoted by the new management of À Punt have only served to "sink the audience", which, as she indicated, "does not exceed 3% on average".
"They have the news programs at an all-time low and the loss of reputation is tremendous," she stated, while calling it "unacceptable" that last Sunday, May 10, "they cut the news program to maintain the broadcast of the San Isidro Fair" from Madrid. "We already know that it is an event with a great connection to Valencian current affairs," she pointed out ironically.
Caballero stressed that on the same day, "they even sacrificed the events of the Virgen de los Desamparados to broadcast the bullfights." "No joke. Blessed Mother of God! That is the PP's first priority, the open fight against information," she asserted, further denouncing that À Punt's schedule incorporates "more opinion from external individuals" because, in her opinion, the Consell "does not want Valencians to know about their misdeeds".
Along these lines, she criticized the reinforcement of "external content," even forcing workers to take orders from private companies, with programs that, as she said, "do not respond to public service." She specifically cited the afternoon program and reproached that, on the day of the massive teacher protest in València, that time was dedicated to talking "about parents' WhatsApp groups."
Socialist Criticism of À Punt's Management
The PSPV deputy insisted that it "doesn't matter" if they are external contracts, because À Punt has "the obligation to review its content." "Didn't anyone think that day that Valencians wanted to know what was happening in the Valencian Community?" asked Caballero, who warned that all of this "takes its toll." Therefore, she called on the Consell to "fire the entire management" in order to "start again."
Caballero has focused on the bullfighting programming scheduled for this weekend, when the channel will broadcast "almost eight hours of bullfighting in three days": on Friday, delayed, a bullfight from the San Isidro Fair in Madrid; on Saturday, live, a bullfight from Bocairent (Valencia); and on Sunday, another from the Las Ventas bullring in Madrid.
Likewise, he has questioned the appointment of Román Ceballos, "one of the liquidators of Canal 9," as the new president of the board of directors of the Audiovisual Corporation of the Comunitat Valenciana (CACVSA). "What could go wrong?" he concluded.
The Consell claims pluralism and independence
Faced with these accusations, the second vice president, José Díez, has emphasized that the Consell's objective is a public television that respects "political and social pluralism," that informs with "truthfulness and objectivity," that reflects "the real diversity" of the Comunitat, that belongs "to everyone," and that "is not at the service of any political party."
He recalled that À Punt has "its own management and control bodies, whose independence is guaranteed and must always be preserved," and highlighted that the public channel closed 2025 "with an average audience 17% higher than in 2024."
Díez has rejected that the Valencian Executive sets the "news priorities" of public media: "The Consell neither writes the news nor prepares the schedules nor decides the editorial lines. Never. I repeat, never. Because we believe in the independence of public media, because we do not conceive of public television as an extension of political power."
At this point, he expressed his perplexity at "hearing lessons on media independence from those who precisely staged a parliamentary assault" on Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE) "the day after a tragedy like the dana" and from those who "have not hesitated too much to turn it into a transmission belt for messages broadcast from Moncloa."
He reproached the socialists for starting "from a concept of public television in which they take for granted that it is controlled and at the service of power" and lamented Caballero's "obsession" with bullfighting broadcasts, defending their presence on the schedule: "The audiences show that bullfighting interests Valencians."
Díez has added that these broadcasts "are always above the chain's average" audience, has even recommended to the socialist deputy "the Sorollana bullfight that will take place in the historic bullring of Bocairent" this weekend and has concluded: "We defend a public, independent, plural and rigorous television, independent of political power".