Untitled - socium.ge

394 Imma Tubellarooms, including five digital rooms; three sound studios and seventeen voiceoverrecording cabins; thirty-five ENG/EFP units; two mobile microwavelinks and a third one equipped with a satellite uplink dish (SNC); eight fullyequipped outside broadcast vans, one capable of producing in 16 x 9 format;a large number of microwave links with more than twenty reception and transmissiondishes, including a 6-m steering dish and a growing number of fibreopticconnections; a meteorological radar system as a result of an agreementbetween the Catalan Government and the University of Barcelona; twentybeauty shot cameras throughout Catalonia, and several regional facilitieslocated in different parts of the country.Within a few years Catalan viewers identified with TVC. They see it as“their” television. Both channels have a larger viewing audience than anyother in Catalonia, with between 25 and 30 percent of total audience share. Itsdaily news programs have maintained their lead day after day from the veryfirst days of broadcasting. News programs represent the backbone of thestation’s programming and provide a reference point for the viewers, a matterof loyalty. On the other hand, news bulletins not only contribute to an audience’sstructured perception of the world, but they contribute decisively to theconstitution of communication spaces, which give a public presence to collectiveidentities.In a recent research project, Project Internet Catalonia (PIC), 5 carried out atthe Open University of Catalonia (UOC), we found that, even by understandingthe concept of communication practice in the widest possible sense,frequencies showed us that the most common daily communication practice inCatalonia is watching television (90.8 percent), followed by talking to peopleat home, playing with children, or similar (80.8 percent). Watching televisionis the most common communication practice even if it has suffered the mostfrom the use of the Internet: 16.6 percent of people watch television less sincethey have gone online, and of this 16.6 percent, 61.7 percent are under the ageof 30.To construct the variable of communication practices we used newsprograms as a reference point because we considered that they represented anapproximation of people’s loyalty to the channel. Television is still the referencecommunication medium for keeping people informed, but people do nottrust it. People trust the radio more. The Internet, in spite of the possibilitiesfor contrast that it contains, or the possibility of receiving information in realtime, is only used as a source of regular information by 1 percent of the populationand only for international events.The meaningful finding is that almost 50 percent (47.6 percent) of Catalanswatch TV news in Catalan, which means, fundamentally, TV3, but also Canal33, BTV (the local television of Barcelona), City TV (a local private channel),some other local channels and some programs on the Spanish second channel,