Radio Television Canaria (RTVC)

Radiotelevisión Canaria is the Canary Islands’ public broadcaster. Law 8/1984 created the public entity; Televisión Canaria began broadcasting in 1999. The 2014 law reorganised an existing broadcaster and was replaced by Law 6/2026, in force since 6 August 2026. César Augusto Toledo Hernández has served as general administrator since November 2025.

Media assets

Television: Televisión Canaria, with a separate Televisión Canaria Net digital feed.

Radio: La Radio Canaria.

Digital: rtvc.es and Canarias Play, the streaming platform introduced in January 2026. Televisión Canaria Net is a digital continuity, rather than a second terrestrial television channel.

Ownership and governance

RTVC is a public entity within the Canary Islands’ institutional public sector. Its television and radio companies, Televisión Pública de Canarias, S.A. and Radio Pública de Canarias, S.A., are wholly owned by RTVC. The 2026 law provides for the radio company to be absorbed by the television company; the law’s transitional provisions keep both operating until that merger takes effect. It also expressly grants RTVC functional independence from the regional government.

Governance under the preceding law remained incomplete. A 2018 amendment replaced the Consejo Rector with a Junta de Control, but the new board and director-general posts were not filled. Exceptional single-person administration continued, and a 2023 decree-law created the general administrator’s office. Parliament elected Toledo to that office on 26 November 2025, by 38 votes to 28, with three abstentions, following María Méndez Castro’s resignation.

The 2026 law establishes a seven-member Junta de Control. Parliament elects its members for a five-year term. Election requires a three-fifths majority on the first ballot; an absolute majority suffices on a second ballot held at least 24 hours later. Parliament separately elects the director general by absolute majority on a government proposal. These are different appointment procedures. The board can begin operating with four appointed members; if it cannot operate, the director general temporarily exercises its powers, subject to specified parliamentary reporting duties.

The law retains the general administrator’s powers until a director general is appointed under the new procedure. Toledo was still appearing before Parliament as general administrator on 1 October 2026. After Toledo’s move from director of Media and Content to general administrator, RTVC appointed Ángel Báez Álvarez to the Media and Content post in December 2025. Marta González Cairós was identified by RTVC as director of Televisión Canaria’s news services in 2026.

Source of funding and budget

RTVC receives regional public funding and earns commercial income, including advertising. The regional budget laws give these initial appropriations for the public entity:

The 2025 figure reflects an official correction to the budget law. The 2026 amount comprises EUR 60,416,761 in current transfers and EUR 490,046 in capital transfers from the regional administration, under Law 9/2025 of 23 December 2025. The 2024 accounts record subsequent budget modifications, while the television subsidiary separately reported EUR 3.45 million in advertising turnover for that year.

All three RTVC entities received 10 out of 10 in the Canary Islands transparency commissioner’s assessment for 2025, according to RTVC. The assessment concerns publication of institutional, contracting, employment and financial information; it does not measure editorial independence.

Editorial independence

Article 36 of the 2026 law requires independent and impartial news programming and prohibits mandatory instructions from the regional government or political and other interests. It requires RTVC’s daily news programmes to be produced and executed with its own staff, while permitting additional or complementary services from contractors. Until the first new programme contract is approved, the law sets annual minimums of 1,600 hours of television news and 3,500 hours of radio news produced with RTVC staff. The minimums phase in during 2026 and apply in full from 2027.

The earlier law provided for News Councils with specified functions, including non-binding opinions on proposed news-director appointments. Those councils were never constituted. The 2026 law instead creates a Professional Committee to safeguard the independence, objectivity and accuracy of news. Its membership and detailed powers are left to rules approved by the new Junta de Control. The committee and a Social Participation Advisory Council must be constituted within six months of publication of RTVC’s new organisational regulations, rather than within six months of the law’s commencement.

External accountability includes parliamentary scrutiny, review by the Canary Islands’ Court of Auditors and RTVC’s Audience Office, which accepts complaints about content and programming. The 2026 law envisages supervision by a regional audiovisual authority, but postpones those powers until such an authority is constituted.

The editorial concerns are concrete, although their causes remain contested. In February 2024, journalist and guest commentator Francisco Pomares was interrupted live while discussing developments in a politically sensitive investigation. The presenter attributed the interruption to programme direction. RTVC staff representatives condemned it; the programme’s external producer acknowledged its seriousness, described it as a live-production misunderstanding and removed the programme director. The incident establishes an editorial intervention, but does not itself identify an instruction from the regional government. SMM cited it when downgrading RTVC to State-Controlled in 2024.

In November 2025, RTVC’s staff representatives alleged that the broadcaster had declined to cover their protests over proposed audiovisual legislation, then aired a report on the proposal that included the regional president’s position but not the workforce’s. They described that coverage as manipulation. The same period brought the resignations of Méndez and the directors of news and production; staff representatives warned of a risk of political interference arising from the restructuring.

Reporting in July 2025 alleged that the regional presidency directed programming through a vice-counsellor and that the newly created Media and Content post could serve as political oversight. Toledo rejected the description of himself as a political overseer. Opposition legislators raised further allegations about politically selective coverage in July 2026. On 1 October, Toledo told Parliament that RTVC’s news staff decide what and how to report and receive no government instructions.

AI and digital policy

In September 2026, Toledo told Parliament that artificial intelligence would feature in a planned October renewal of RTVC’s news studios, alongside new sets and audiovisual technology. The announcement did not specify the intended AI applications. A publicly accessible RTVC editorial policy governing generative AI was not identified for this review; that finding does not establish that internal rules are absent.

Classification rationale

RTVC retains its State-Controlled (SC) classification provisionally. It is publicly owned and chiefly financed through regional appropriations. For years, the absence of the intended collegiate governing bodies concentrated their powers in a single administrator. The new law permits an absolute parliamentary majority to elect the board on a second ballot and requires only that majority to elect a government-proposed director general.

The editorial assessment rests on the 2024 on-air intervention, the specific 2025 complaint about government-only coverage of a workforce dispute, and reporting alleging executive influence over programming.

The next review will examine appointments to the Junta de Control and director-general post; the Professional Committee’s composition and powers; comparable news coverage under the present management; and the financial results and governance effects of the planned company merger.

September 2026