RTVE Catalunya

When Televisión Española's first channel started its activity in 1956, broadcasts were restricted to Madrid and its environs. For that, the authorities made a plan to create territorial and production centers, which transported TVE's signal across Spain through a network of repeaters. The central studios in Catalonia were located at the former Hotel Miramar, atop Montjuïc in Barcelona, which had housed a restaurant in the 1929 International Fair of Barcelona,^[2][3] thus becoming the Miramar studios.

The first television broadcast took place on 15 February 1959, with the airing of a match between Real Madrid CF and CF Barcelona.^[4][5] The first broadcasts from the production center took place on 14 July that year with a variety program named Balcón del Mediterráneo, Les primeres emissions del centre de producció van tenir lloc el 14 de juliol del mateix any, amb un programa de varietats anomenat Balcón del Mediterráneo, which later inspired Club Miramar, its first program catering a national audience.^[6] Its first director was Enrique de las Casas.

Since the beginning, Catalonia became one of the most important RTVE production centers. For many years, the Miramar studios represented the only link TVE had to the Eurovision network of the European Broadcasting Union, with which all international programs and news passed through. RTVE Catalunya distributed the marriage of Fabiola Mora y Aragón with Baudouin of Belgium in 1960 to all of Spain, one of the events that impulsed the consumption of television in Spain, and did the same with international events such as the Tour de France and the Eurovision Song Contest. Most of the programming in the Catalan opt-out aired in Spanish, however the first program spoken in Catalan aired on 27 October 1964, Teatro catalán, at a time when Francoism dominated, programs in the Catalan language were residual, limited to thirteen hours a month until 1974,^[7] the year where continuous Catalan-language production began.

With the birth of La 2, TVE Catalunya had more time for opt-outs to deliver its own programming,^[8] and secondary studios at Esplugues de Llobregat and l'Hospitalet de Llobregat appeared.^[9] The re-establishment of democracy in Spain led to a significant increase of Catalan-language programming, with programs such as the first newscast in that language, Miramar (later L'informatiu), first aired on 3 October 1977, or Terra d'escudella, the first children's program in Catalan. Opt-outs consolidated under the name Circuit Català (Catalan Circuit), already aiming for linguistic normalization, and, from a total of 54 hours of programming per month in 1977, it raised to 60 in 1978.^[10]

On 27 June 1983, RTVE Catalunya moved to Sant Cugat del Vallès, and from the Miramar studios, only the façade was kept, which is now part of a hotel. With the relocation, RTVE Catalunya gradually increased its production, and avoided having studios in other cities.

For years, the Sant Cugat center aspired to have a greater autonomy. In 1980, TVE Catalunya professionals presented to the direction of the public entity a plan known as Informe Miramar to create a third channel for Catalonia, a goal that was stagnated with the birth of TV3, promoted by the Catalan government. The document also qualified the situation of Catalan at TVE as marginal and without global voaction, and defined the news service as being regionalist and partial.^[11] In 1987, the second channel gained more time for opt-outs and, under the directorate of Pilar Miró, a plan for a third TVE channel only for Catalonia was being studied, but this did not bring in benefits for TV3, which already received a second frequency to launch Canal 33.

At Spanish scale, RTVE Catalunya consolidated itself with all kinds of programs: gameshows such as Si lo sé no vengo, El tiempo es oro or Saber y ganar, or programs such as Barrio Sésamo, Ni en vivo ni en directo, El planeta imaginario, Pinnic and Redes, which revealed new journalists such as Júlia Otero, Alfons Arús, Olga Viza, Lorenzo Milá and Mercedes Milá, Xavier Sardà, Jordi Hurtado, Jordi González and La Trinca.^[12] Une of its biggest artifices was directorSergi Schaaff. His experience was essential during the 1992 Summer Olympics. On the other half, the opt-out programming of Circuit Català became public service programming, complementary to TV3 and only in Catalan. During the first two years of the Sant Cugat center, it produced 50,000 hours of programming, of which 60% were in Catalan and the rest in Castillan Spanish.

In early 2000, the production of RTVE Catalunya for national broadcast surpassed 2,500 hours. The center acquired more responsibilities, and became in charge of sports channel Teledeporte. Later, it was put in charge of Cultural·es —shut down in 2010— and TVE HD, Televisión Española's high-definition channel. In 2010, the directorate of the public entity transferred La 2's broadcast from Madrid to Sant Cugat.^[13] Currently, RTVE Catalunya is one of RTVE's two production centers outside of Madrid, alongside the one for the Canary Islands, and, in the Catalan aspect, it has three news bulletins (midday, second edition and weekend) and an opt-out strand.

In any case, programming on TVE is of an hour and a half on weekdays, an extra half-hour on Saturdays and around an hour and a half on Sundays, a lower quality it had until the new work regulation laws of 2006, when it produced over three hours of Catalan programing a day on working adys and there were opt-outs on prime time slots with high viewing potential on Saturday nights.

In October 2025, La 2 Cat, entirely produced in Sant Cugat and catering Catalonia, using the spectrum of the defunct 8TV.^[14]