CMMedia will implement between the months of April and May the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools for the automatic and real-time subtitling of all audiovisual content it broadcasts 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
"This is an innovative technology that allows for the generation of subtitles for videos and live broadcasts instantly," said Carmen Amores, the Director General of the Public Entity of Radio and Television of Castilla-La Mancha, during the Control Commission of the regional parliament.
Amores explained that this technology is based on the combination of state-of-the-art speech recognition and natural language processing to transcribe audio to text and synchronize it with the image in real time. "Currently, our operations development teams are in the preparatory phase for the implementation of these new processes, which will always be supervised by individuals," she added.
She noted that the advantages of this new technology go beyond facilitating accessibility for people with disabilities, as it allows for subtitling in multiple languages and in real time for all CMMedia content.
"Can you imagine being able to watch the news from Castilla-La Mancha or the program ‘En compañía’, in Spanish of course, but also with subtitles in English or French, all in real time? This technology will allow us to implement improvements like these for live and on-demand content," she argued.
CONTENT THROUGH CONNECTED TV
Furthermore, CMMedia has already begun evaluations to implement as soon as possible the project for broadcasting and distributing content through connected television, to continue being a reference and guarantor of quality entertainment and information in all possible environments.
To achieve this, a renewed HBBTV service will be activated, which for the first time will include live broadcasts of regional television and radio and the CMMPlay platform. "For the first time, all this live and on-demand content will be available to watch from any Smart TV in the region with HBBTV technology, as simple as pressing the red button on the remote control and navigating through the platform environment," she emphasized.
CMMPlay will also deploy applications for connected televisions, allowing any citizen from anywhere in the region or the world to download this platform on their connected TV to access all the live and on-demand content of public radio and television.
"It is a way to bring our public service content outside the region with completely free access and the highest quality," stated the Director General of Radio Television Castilla-La Mancha, who sees this as an opportunity for the entity to monetize its products through campaigns specifically developed "for these environments that advertisers increasingly demand."
During her appearance, she also reported on the advertising revenue balance for 2024 in the corporation, stating that CMMedia ended the previous year with a total figure of 2,548,000 euros, meeting the commercial budget. "Despite a 4.7% decrease compared to the previous year’s revenues, the commercial balance is positive, as we had seen a 44% increase in sales over the past two years in a market that was closing negatively."
AUDIENCES AT THE END OF 2024
Amores also shared the audience figures for the entity during 2024, indicating that television closed the year with an average audience share of 6.04%, retaining its most loyal audience, those over 65. "Our strong point is in the time slot from 14:00 to 23:00, Monday to Friday. If we focus on this time frame, the channel’s share would be 7.7%, and if we reduce the hours between 14:00 and 20:00, we go up to 9%."
She specified that programs like ‘Castilla-La Mancha at 2’, ‘En compañía’, ‘Lo mejor del oeste’, ‘Ancha es Castilla-La Mancha’, and the game show ‘Atrápame si Puedes’ are the ones that contribute the most viewers to the channel.
Taking into account that 2024 was a "particularly challenging" year for regional channels due to the overlap of the Olympics and the Eurocup with the summer bullfighting broadcasts and a mismatch in the audience meter panel composition due to an overrepresentation of households with access to platforms like Netflix or Amazon Prime in 2024.
Regarding the Regional Public Radio, Amores highlighted that its audience had increased again, reaching almost 60,000 listeners on average in 2024 – in the latest EGM published – an increase of 10,000 compared to the previous EGM and a more than 20% increase in its audience.
She also noted that in this third wave of the EGM, the afternoon magazine ‘De hoy no pasa’ was launched, which has "revitalized" the Monday to Friday afternoon slot from 19:00 to 20:00, with an average of 11,000 daily listeners. Following them, ‘Castilla-La Mancha at 8’ is the program that has seen the most audience growth, coinciding with the special coverage that the public radio provided during the dana, going from 1,000 to 14,000 listeners.
Regarding digital audiences, she mentioned that the community of cmmedia.es and CMMPlay grew to six million unique users in 2024.
Moreover, the CMM community on social networks exceeded one and a half million followers on the main accounts, with the CMM YouTube account recently surpassing 800,000 followers.
PROGRAMMING ADVANCES
Regarding the novelties in the public entity’s programming, the Director General exclusively announced that CMMedia will offer for the first time in the months of May and June 11 celebrations of the San Isidro Fair in Madrid, in what she considers "a great commitment to expanding the catalog of bullfighting broadcasts."
In addition to this, the main novelty in the programming of the regional public television will occur "immediately" in the morning slot, as on Monday, March 17, the new cultural quiz show ‘Yo sé más que tú’ will premiere, for which the casting is already open to participate.
Finally, she also mentioned that a format for the weekend prime time is being considered, which could be launched between April and May in collaboration with other regional television channels. A project that is in a "very early" stage, so Amores considered it "adventurous" to give more details.
POLITICAL GROUPS
The political groups intervened in the commission, starting with the Vox deputy Iván Sánchez, who denounced the "disinformation" that occurs in the public entity by "trying to hide or cover up the third political force in Parliament." "In the end, it is just another way of disinforming," he said.
On the other hand, the PP deputy Santiago Serrano lamented the lack of a contract-program that delimits the function of this public service, hoping that the remodeling of the Statute will be seized to strengthen "that legal umbrella" under which the activity of Radio Television Castilla-La Mancha is based.
Lastly, the Socialist deputy María Jesús Merino highlighted that "against the misinformation, half-truths, absurdities, and populism that are sold in some media, CMMedia has achieved prestige, reliability, and integrity."
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