Goodbye to 'Mahón' and 'Ibiza': TVE changes its Catalan place names

PalmSpanish Television, and especially the program The Weather, has begun using the official Catalan place names for the municipalities of the Balearic Islands, according to the Fem-ho en Català collective, which had requested this. From now on, viewers will see Mahon and Ibiza in the weather forecasts, which will no longer include the Spanish forms.

RTVE's style guide already requires the use of official toponyms, and therefore the use of Castilian variants was considered an anomaly.

According to the RTVE Audience Ombudsman, speaking to Fem-ho en Català, the reason for this inappropriate use stemmed from requests made at the time by the town councils of the affected municipalities.

The group has described this incident as "extremely serious," considering it evidence of "denormalizing policies" implemented by some municipal governments, although it is unknown when these requests were made or under what political affiliation.

For the group, this change may seem like a "minor milestone," but they consider it an important step toward respecting indigenous languages, and in this case, Catalan.