Javierito and Santaolalla: the channel no one will watch

La Séptima: a channel that aims to compete without an audience and with subsidies in the mix

While open-air television ratings plummet and under-40s admit they don't turn on the TV, there are still those who set up channels. The latest: La Séptima, the media creature of Javierito, who brings his partner, presenter Santaolalla, to captain a program. In the midst of a liquidity crisis in the sector, the question is not who will watch the network, but who pays for it.

The same recipe as La Sens

Behind the project is the same CEO who set up La Sens in the Zapatero era, a certain Contreras. A coincidence that invites skepticism: if with La Sens trust and millions were lost, what does he expect to find in La Séptima? Skeptics recall that the network aims to function as a placement agency for profiles close to Moncloa, the same pattern as those who ran RTVE's 'praetorian guard' and now jump to the private sector.

Subsidies, concessions and debt

The underlying doubt is economic. Opening a channel requires a license, infrastructure and a model that does not depend only on advertising. Recent history shows that private television survives thanks to hidden subsidies and institutional advertising. All of which ends up being financed with public debt. On the other side, supporters of the project point out that a slot on the dial always finds investors and that audience is not everything: it is enough to bill the administrations.

Casting with tabloid appeal

Santaolalla's first program comes with another signing: Alba Carrillo, a regular name in celebrity gossip. Two profiles that revive the model of heartthrob linked to after-lunch shows. Hard to see in this a strategy of journalistic fruta. Rather the formula of filling cheap broadcast hours while waiting for public money to arrive.

With that combination of media signings and a powerful network of political contacts, La Séptima is already announced as the best channel without having broadcast a minute. The most catastrophic calculations speak of salaries of 'one hundred and something thousand euros' for some of its faces, and the horizon of a year in office for the political structure that supports it. No one has yet explained what the business plan is. Perhaps there isn't one, and that is precisely the reason it exists.