The Platform for Language is promoting a motion to bring RTVE's new Catalan channel to the Balearic Islands.

PalmThis week, the Platform for Language sent a motion to all municipal political groups in the Balearic Islands, requesting that they present it in their town council plenary sessions demanding that RTVE's new Catalan-language channel also be broadcast in the islands. The organization denounces that limiting this new audiovisual offering exclusively to Catalonia "seriously violates the linguistic rights of the citizens of the Balearic Islands and constitutes, at the same time, a further example of institutional disregard for the unity of the Catalan language and its speakers."

In a statement, the organization recalled that RTVE president José Pablo López Sánchez argued on April 7 that the new Catalan-language channel should serve to strengthen the social use of the language and reflect the linguistic plurality of the state. "Despite this, everything indicates that the broadcast will only be on conventional television in Catalonia, excluding territories such as the Islands and the Valencian Community, where Catalan is also an official language," the platform lamented, considering that limiting the broadcast of RTVE's new channel contradicts current legislation, which requires guaranteeing linguistic diversity in the public audiovisual space. Thus, it pointed out that both the State Radio and Television Law and the General Law on Audiovisual Communication establish the duty to promote all official languages of the State. It also warns that the measure violates the rights enshrined in the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRL), given that it prevents citizens of the Islands from accessing content in their own language, which it describes as unjustified discrimination.

The motion, which will be sent to the municipalities of the Islands, also highlights that the State has the technical resources to guarantee the broadcast of the new channel in Catalan throughout the territory. According to the organization, the recent Royal Decree 250/2025, which reorganizes the radio spectrum and introduces the DVB-T2 system in DTT, opens the door to incorporating new channels if there is political will. In this sense, the organization demands that both the children's channel Clan and Ràdio 4, which must broadcast in Catalan, be fully accessible from the Archipelago as well, and not only through digital platforms such as RTVE Play.

It has also demanded that RTVE's new Catalan channel not be limited to content focused on Catalonia, but rather reflect the territorial diversity of the language and include the daily reality of the Islands in its programming.

The initiative has also urged the Balearic Government to promote "all necessary actions to guarantee full reciprocity between the audiovisual media of the different Catalan-speaking autonomous communities." "The current lack of reciprocity between audiovisual media limits the linguistic and cultural cohesion of the Catalan domain and fragments its communicative space," he stressed.

MÁS por Mallorca's PNL

It should be remembered that the MÉS parliamentary group for Mallorca already presented a non-legislative motion (PNL) in the Parliament on this matter in May.

Furthermore, they also want the Parliament of the Balearic Islands to convey to the Spanish government that the audiovisual sector of the Balearic Islands must be able to participate on equal terms in the opportunity that the launch of RTVE's new Catalan-language channel represents, creating content specifically from the Balearic Islands. The Balearic Islands must implement the relevant technical, legal, and economic measures to ensure that RTVE's new Catalan-language channel is also distributed in the Balearic Islands, both through digital terrestrial television (DTT) and through digital media and online platforms. The Balearic Islands must promote the necessary agreements between RTVE and the regional governments of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, and the Valencian Community, in order to coordinate the dissemination, content collaboration, and synergies between this new channel and the respective public broadcasters. in public media with a national reach and that adopts a perspective of linguistic cohesion rather than territorial fragmentation, in the design and implementation of public policies related to linguistic diversity and the media.