RTVE striking employees disrupt newscast

A one-day strike called on Wednesday by employees at the state broadcasting conglomerate Radio Television Española forced the national newscast Telediario to suspend its transmission after 14 minutes on the air. The newscaster said she could not continue because of the noisy strikers outside the studio.

RTVE workers walked off the job to protest proposed government cutbacks to save money at the fledging broadcaster. According to press reports, some 3,000 jobs are at stake. For years, RTVE has been a money-loosing operation as television viewers and radio listeners prefer tuning to private broadcasters. In February, the government board that oversees RTVE as well as other state holdings said that the austerity measures were necessary to stop the broadcaster’s soaring debt, which is estimated at more than 7 billion euros.

Employees who called the strike said that they would disrupt all programming except the newscasts. However, this was not the case on Wednesday as you can see in this link to El Mundo.