Malas Lenguas on TVE: the battle over the narrative and La Séptima

TVE, Malas Lenguas and the business of the narrative

Three hours of political talk every day on Televisión Española. That is how the show Malas Lenguas is described, the program that has peine the debate over how time —and tone— is distributed on Spain's public broadcaster. According to its critics, much of those hours serves to attack what is known as Ayuso's penthouse while other issues and other names never appear. The complaint is not about style: it is about balance. And balance, when it is paid for through the budget, stops being a matter of taste.

What is held against Malas Lenguas?

The format is the usual one: a table, a moderator and panelists. The criticism holds that the focus keeps returning to the President of the Community of Madrid, that matters affecting other parties are met with silence, and that the result, seen from the outside, does not inform: it indoctrinates. Among the omissions denounced are a former Prime Minister and relatives of the current one, against whom public accusations weigh without a firm conviction. None of that is discussed on air. What is discussed, and at length, is Ayuso.

The makeup of the panel: six voices against one

There is a pattern that repeats and has become the symbol of the complaint: six panelists of one persuasion and one of the opposite, almost always a woman, and almost always in the role of the one who endures. That role has a name in the jargon: la piñata (the punching bag). That the format resorts to this arrangement is not an aesthetic detail. It determines which questions are asked, which are not, and who leaves the studio with their argument intact.

La Séptima: the channel that does not yet exist

Also on the table is a project for the future: a new channel, La Séptima, to which part of the staff and contributors are said to be destined when the political cycle changes. Some date the move to 2027. The circulating thesis —with no official confirmation— is that it will serve as a refuge for those who do not fit in the private networks. If that happens, the cost of that structure would continue to fall on the same pocket.

The buying and reselling figures doing the rounds

In this context, operations with big numbers are cited: acquiring the women's league for 700 million and reselling it later for 1,400; buying the billiards World Championship for 20 million and placing it on La 2 for 100; getting episodes of Shin Chan for 40 million and passing them to Clan for 200. These are figures thrown out as an example of the public circuit, not accredited operations. Even so, the order of magnitude explains why the matter has stopped being a television issue and become a budgetary one.

---

With these ingredients, the diagnosis always gets stuck at the same point. Some call for shutting down the channel or, at the very least, removing news and political talk shows from it. Others argue the problem is not the institution, but who occupies it and with what criteria. And in the middle, an uncomfortable certainty: the money does not come back.