Marta Romagosa: "At some moments I have felt a little bit of furniture at Catalunya Ràdio"

BarcelonaMarta Romagosa is the voice, since this season, of one of Catalunya Ràdio's flagship programs: La nit dels ignorants. In this interview, she looks back at her long career at the station and speaks frankly about the bright spots, but also the shadows, of public radio.

After working in news for so many years, how did the proposal to present a historic program like La nit dels ignorants come to you?

— To my surprise. It's when they ask you to go to a meeting and you think: “Oh, what have I done now?” And then they tell me that Solà wanted to leave after fifteen years and that they considered me a good bet to continue the program. I thought they were joking. "Really? Me? Now?" So many years wanting to do a program and nobody had ever paid attention to me... I suppose such a historic space as La nit dels ignorants wasn't suitable for someone much younger or from outside Catalunya Ràdio. For once, being a woman and now being 58 years old has played in my favor.

Was it an immediate yes?

— I meditated on it. Nothing, twenty-four hours, or maybe a little more. Because first I thought: “Wow, great, they're finally giving you a show”. But then I reasoned: “Yes, but what do I want?” And I asked if I could make changes and contributions. And they told me: "You should make changes." So, leaving that meeting, I already started to see interviews, segments... I was perfectly fine in news, but I noticed as if I had been a little sleepy and my head suddenly started to spin.

Now that you've had a few months, are you satisfied?

— I am delighted. I had a bit of apprehension, because it was a consolidated product, with Solà's seal... I thought that at first we would go down in audience and I hoped the company would be patient. And I also asked for patience from the listeners, because changes can be surprising at first, and now they don't call as much as before. But they understood, and the good response was seen immediately. It is very comforting.

Audiences have accompanied: 59,000 listeners, which is more than the 46,000 from a year ago. Before you told me: "All my life wanting to do a program..." What had stood in the way?

— So I don't know. I made a show one year, called El mirall, and I was very attached to it, but I was aware that if I was doing it, it was because that year there was no budget to sign a big name from outside. Which doesn't mean that the big name will yield a great audience result...

But had you ever applied for it?

— At some point, but you always came across comments like “Thanks, I have a drawer full of proposals”. I don't go into offices and say: “Hello, I want to do El matí de Catalunya Ràdio or La tarda de Catalunya Ràdio”. If you make a proposal one day and they tell you no, on the second refusal you think “Well, if you have a drawer full of proposals, adiós muy buenas”. And I haven't been back since.

Are godparents important?

— I have never had any, but I suppose there are, depending on who you ask. In this house there have been very good people in many things and for whom there has never been a bet. And then they have fallen by the wayside, because when you are not given opportunities, you get demoralized. Well, perhaps we should go look for La Masia! Here there are people who have grown up with the house since they were very young, they believe in it, they love it and they would give anything for the numbers to be three times better. And this has always happened, it's not new.

RAC1 is the leader with a lineup in which men dominate practically the entire lineup. Does being a woman penalize you on the radio?

— Being a woman penalizes life, many times. And this is so, no matter how much we celebrate and claim and now have a program on Catalunya Ràdio called Les dones i els dies. I suppose it has to do with what we were talking about entering offices and believing anything. I have been taught at my home to work to achieve things. And that if you don't really achieve what you want, maybe you haven't put enough insistence or perseverance into it. Of course, you look at the radio newsrooms and they are full of women, but if you look at the command or who leads the big programs... wow, it doesn't match. Something is failing. Motherhood penalizes, but then, when you are older and no longer have to run to prepare anyone's porridge... then it turns out you are too old.

Have you encountered this ageism?

— It's not that I've experienced it, but you see that there are always young people who overtake you. And we really need them, young people, because we have to share the radio know-how of the past with the talent that's rising, all together. We are a public radio. Therefore, the country has invested in you. All this, where does it stand? It should be normal to start by breaking ground from below and moving up. But there are quite a few examples of people who had never done radio, or very little, and who suddenly reached the very top. And you think: "Perhaps if all these people in charge had looked at what was at La Masia of Catalunya Ràdio, we wouldn't be where we are".

We are doing the interview just the day the EGM has been released. How do you value the audiences of Catalunya Ràdio?

— I would like the numbers to be different. In the end, it's no longer a matter of one or two programs: it's a matter for everyone, for the entire station. Suddenly, you realize that we have been important for many, many years, and we continue to be, because we have a lot of people who listen to us, but another station is capturing all that audience. And that the role that you thought Catalunya Ràdio should have had for several years is now held by RAC1. Decisions are made and those in charge say: "Now yes, now this will be definitive, it will be a close call." But the ratings come out again and, from a close call, nothing.

Is it a matter of budget?

— No. It's a matter of charisma. Of empathy. Of knowing how to create the atmosphere of the programs. Many people tell you: "I don't like this program, but I listen to it because I like the other one less." That can't be: you have to make a program listenable because it's genuinely liked, not because they don't know which one to discard. Radio is information, entertainment, and, above all, company. And the way we live now, where everything is so fast, goes a bit against it, because maybe there's something that interests me but after three minutes it disappears and they're talking about another topic.

Chop, chop! It's the radio's mantra.

— Everything quickly. That's why what I do every night is an independent republic. I have conversations. They don't last long either, but there's time to get into them. It's just that we've forgotten a bit about people, because we focus on being the first to say things, and in the fastest way possible. In 37 seconds you can't explain Rosalía's concert. If you have a person who has gone and was amazed by what they just saw, you have to give them a little more time, so they can build it and convey it. And another very important thing is to know how to listen. We journalists have to know how to ask, but, please, can we also listen?

I have 35 years of career at Catalunya Ràdio. What has been the sweetest moment? And the bitterest?

— There are many sweet ones. The first opportunity, for example, even if it was with all the fear in the world, because you feel super vulnerable –you are a young woman– and whoever in the newsroom looks at you, looks at you in a certain way. Or when I was able to do the program El mirall, or Catalunya al dia,, because it was local information and with time to explain the things that happen in the towns. Or this one now, La nit dels ignorants,, which is the cherry on top. And look, I don't like sweets very much, because I prefer peanuts, fuet, coca-cola and fried potatoes, but as the weeks go by I enjoy it more.

And the negatives?

— The pandemic was tough. We dismantled all the programming and created a single station between Catalunya Ràdio and Catalunya Informació. Four people, working with masks and all the windows open, feeling the cold. It was hard, but you knew you were doing a job that people needed to hear. Now, from a personal point of view, the hardest moment was when I went down to programs, to be the second on El matí de Catalunya Ràdio, when the first was Manel Fuentes.

Why?

— I believe that one must know how to command. And people who don't know how to command, who only know how to shout, and who don't know how to treat people, shouldn't be in certain places. But in the end, decisions, as always, are made by those above. No matter how much you say that you can't work like this, in the end nobody listens to you. Empathy is as important as talent. He spent many months chasing me to say yes... and I made the mistake of accepting. Having seen the experience, if I could erase it from my memory and my resume, it would be perfect. The mistake was to endure more than one season. I messed up. Until a helicopter came and got me out of there, because otherwise I would have ended up pretty badly.

Before you were telling me how you had been educated. Where does Marta Romagosa, who decides to be a journalist, come from?

— I come from Cornellà. Before marrying Toni, I had lived in Cornellà. I am the fourth daughter of a working-class family who was not supposed to come, because my three brothers are much older. “I don’t feel well, doctor, I have the menopause”, my mother said to the doctor. “In nine months, you’ll tell me”, apparently he replied. I am twelve years younger than the youngest, and I have a sister who is 80 years old. I’ve had more fathers and mothers! In any case, I come from a family with many cultural interests, who enjoyed folk dancing, theatre, poetry. And I wanted to be a journalist, an actress, or a flight attendant.

And what made you decide?

— I am quite practical. Flight attendant I discarded that straight away: in the end you end up serving Cokes on the plane, and I thought I would travel and fly anyway. Actress... I was already doing amateur theatre, we used to go to competitions, we used to win prizes... But I knew that many actors never know if they get paid at the end of the month. And one day I went to Radio Cornellà with some theatre friends to be interviewed, because we were doing "Cinderella". And I came back from that interview that, as soon as I entered the house, the family saw it. I had a lit-up gaze. And I wanted to do radio.

Have you received siren songs over the years to go to another station?

— Never, never, never. I've had many jokes, the kind of saying 'You should do this' or 'Why don't you come?' But for someone to say 'I'm coming to sign you'... Never. If I've always been from La Masia... At some points I've felt a bit like furniture, at Catalunya Ràdio, and I've thought: 'You should leave so then they come to sign you and you return to Catalunya Ràdio'. But I haven't done anything to leave either. I don't have godparents, but no one has come looking for me either.

And on television?

— On television I've done very small things, collaborations. First I was nervous, then I always had a very good time... Now I go some day with Helena Garcia Melero and I have a great time, but that's it. Nobody will ask me for a television program at 58 years old and not being a size 38, that's crystal clear. Besides, to do a program about what? If we have to go up mountains or paint our nails... None of that interests me. There are no programs that I would like to do, either. Yes, there was a moment, many years ago, when I took the entrance exams for television. But the day I was supposed to take the exam, my father had just died and I didn't go. I didn't tell anyone at home until a few days later and, when I explained it, my mother scolded me: “Your father wouldn't have wanted this!” But my father died overnight and I wasn't in a condition.

A mother with character!

— My mother died in 2014 and I was with Terribas doing El matí. She started feeling unwell on December 26th and died on the 1st. But on the 28th she was still well. Terribas had that week off and I had to do the program. My mother was clear: “You are going to do the program because I am here, your brothers are already coming, and you, when you finish, will come. You will not stop doing the program because I am sick here.” And I did. She died on the 1st and I went to do the program on the 2nd, because she asked me to. There were two days left to finish the week and, when it was over, I took the days that were mine. We did everything later, because my mother had donated her body to science and there was no funeral parlor or funeral.

The act of donating one's body to science, in a woman of her generation, already indicates a certain personality.

— Many years before dying, one day without telling us anything beforehand, he showed up at our house and gave each child a card. “Here, the day I die, you must call here so they can come and get me.” I asked him why he was doing it, and his answer, which has stayed with me forever, was: “If I have spent my life helping people, why can’t I continue helping them once I am dead?” My reservations went down the drain.

In recent times we are seeing that many people are disconnecting from the news. I would like to know how you see this phenomenon, you who are a journalist by nature.

— Media outlets have saturated the population with immediacy, and it's impossible to disconnect for a while. Information is more dizzying every day and there are very few positive things, so in the end people get scared and say: "I don't want to know anything anymore." A person even called me at night crying because Pedro Sánchez had said "No to war." But if you are not informed and don't have criteria, then those in power will eat your brain. And I'm worried about the younger demographic, who, of course, get their information from TikTok. In the end, the same disaffection that exists in politics is the disaffection that exists in information.

You, who have been at Catalunya Informació for a good part of your career, how do you see the change of brands and the 3CatInfo umbrella?

— I understand that we have a new parent brand above, which is this 3Cat universe, which encompasses everything. And I understand that there is an application that is 3CatInfo and that allows you to inform yourself in a few minutes knowing that it is verified and true. But, in my humble opinion, you cannot destroy historical brands that are accompanied by the evolution of a country, such as Catalunya Ràdio and TV3. That is, the BBC continues to be the BBC. The two things can be complementary, but one cannot eat the other. Now they tell us that no, that it will not eat it, but I think it is a mistake and that marketing strategies are mixed that, sometimes, have little to do with a country's communication strategy.

To the extent you want to talk about it, has being Toni Clapés's partner benefited you or harmed you?

— He always said that I have been harmed.

Indeed. When I interviewed him, he told me he was afraid his freedom might have had consequences for you. The exact quote is: “Because of me, perhaps she hasn't been able to do other things as a professional.”

— Now I say to him: "Maybe you should start taking that phrase down now." But he remains the same, no one silences him and he says what he wants!

And you, do you say what you want?

— I now say what I want.

Now, you say. Since when?

— Now, since I've gotten older! Age makes you think: "What could happen to me to say that, at a certain point in my life, the most horrific or the most messed up passage was this one?" Many years have passed. If I can't say now that I had a terrible time, professionally... Why should I hide it? If hiding it hurts more than saying it. That's it, I won't crucify anyone. In any case, it's true that when Toni says something about 3Cat that people don't like, someone has approached me and I've had to remind them that I'm not responsible for what he might say. And the opposite: employees who have told me "Congratulate him for this or that" because they are not able to express it publicly.

More quote: “The Corporation has mistreated her and has been very unfair in her professional career, but of course, she doesn't belong to any sect or family either.”

— It's what I told you that I've never gone to ask for anything. It's not that they mistreated me, they scorned me, but like so many other people in the house. Because you are there and in the end you end up being a piece of furniture at Catalunya Ràdio. Then one day a leg of another piece of furniture breaks and they think of you.

He also told me that you keep him grounded, that you scold him from time to time, but with reason. The symmetrical question is mandatory: what does Toni bring to you?

— Toni and I have met. And we would have met anyway in another world, because he wanted to be an airplane pilot and I wanted to be a flight attendant. When I found out, I told him: "We would have met on an airplane and we would have had problems, because we would have gotten involved on the airplane and they would have kicked us both out on the street". But we were lucky to meet on the stairs of Catalunya Ràdio. And we have created a very cool team, the kind that goes beyond a couple. I used to always listen to it and he now listens to La nit dels ignorants.

Until two? This is love!

— No, the caga tió gave him an alarm clock that has sleep mode and turns off after 30 minutes. He says his big victory is being able to be in bed at twelve, tucked in, and hear the beginning of the program, because he gets up at seven.

Congratulations on your persistence, partner.

— My mother, when I was very young, used to tell me that when my father put the key in the lock she would think, “Oh, how nice, he’s arrived!” And I would think: “Phew, what a pain.” And now I often remember it, because it’s no longer just the key in the lock. If I hear the elevator at the time I know he’s supposed to be back and it’s a little earlier, I think: “Oh, how nice! He’s arrived 10 minutes early today!” And look, in November we’ll have been married for 25 years.