The People vs. TV

Commercial television in Mexico is looking uglier than ever these days, and it’s not because of an antenna problem. There is something wrong with what’s on...

The boob tube has never been a model of credibility, but if you’ve paid any attention to the ongoing catfight between the Mexican networks and Congress, you’ve been witnessing a real life telenovela, ads included. There is greed, money, good and evil, and even a kissing scene with a Cruella de Vil-type character. Not even the scriptwriters know how it’s going to end, and worst of all, the audience doesn’t matter.

It all started with a kiss: back in 2002, then first lady Marta Sahagún influenced a deal that freed the TV networks from the burden of alloting 12.5 percent of airtime to the government. In a fit of gratitude, Televisa honcho Bernardo Gómez publicly kissed Sahagún’s hand, a moment immortalized by reporters’ cameras. Sahagún had wanted to run for president in 2006 and knew that the support of the television networks would be crucial. But she got burned along the way, and the PAN candidate ended up being current president Felipe Calderón.

Many believe that television played a big role in helping Calderón secure his razor-thin victory. Now the opposition, well represented in Congress, is retaliating; they got the mandatory airtime back (so much for the hand smooch!), taking a bite out of big TV’s projected earnings, and more importantly reducing their influence. Instead of candidates and parties making deals directly with the networks, the electoral institute will allocate airtime by formula.

Televisa and TV Azteca, who together control access to over 90 percent of Mexican viewers, fired back on air. They have accused congressmen of excessively milking taxpayer’s money with little or no improvement in living standards to show for it.

For a day or two the screens became pulpits and it almost sounded honest, as if TV really cared about the people. But there’s still the troubling fact that over the past couple of years Televisa and TV Azteca have blocked competitors wanting to enter the market. They know that their huge power depends on the lack of competition.

Meanwhile legislators used their allocated airtime to run their own ads, explaining the benefits of the deal.

The media duopoly put their hacks to work, and it was shameful to hear journalist colleagues moaning about challenges to freedom of expression when they were really doing dirty work for their bosses. Only a few bold ones, like CNN’s Carmen Aristegui, had the courage to speak out: “I don’t share the idea that this reform hurts my freedom . . . I think it’s a big step for democracy,” she wrote in a column.

The fight goes on. It’s been suggested that Televisa’s Gómez is flexing his power again, forcing other media to toe the line. Colleagues at local newspaper El Centro say that the TV giant pushed the paper’s publishers to fire the editor-in-chief for printing comments by a former Televisa telenovela producer saying that the best thing that could happen to Mexican TV would be for the government to cancel a couple of television concessions and grant them to a new network competitor.

But don’t think of these congressmen as simple heroes for taking on TV Azteca and Televisa; they might look like chunky spidermen swooping in to save us all from the evil TV monsters, but like all heroes they have a dark side: after all, elections can be won or lost on the airwaves, so parties need airtime as much as television barons need their insiders in Congress. Neither side in this dispute seems to notice that the audience should matter more than the incestuous relationship between politicians and the two networks, built on elections and power.

Political analyst Denise Dresser recently commented that Mexico can seem like “nothing-ever-happens” land. Let’s hope that’s not the case for much longer. The only thing that will change it is more competition: we need some new TV kids on the block.

José Fernández Ramos is a freelance journalist, independent film producer and private consultant. Feedback: insidemedi@insidemex.com.  The views reflected in this column do no necessarily reflect those of Inside México.