On the afternoon of September 11, TV3 dedicated a special to live coverage of the demonstrations for independence throughout Catalonia. After half an hour of preliminary news, they sent viewers who wished to remain connected to the Diada to 3CatInfo. TV3 prioritized the broadcast of the apocalyptic film El rastre del llop, a Catalan-produced dystopia that transported us to the end of the world. The vaccine from a fascist government had made the population sick amidst a desolate landscape destroyed by a terrible drought. It seemed like a way of telling us that there is always something worse. Meanwhile, just in case, a sign with huge letters kept scrolling across the bottom of the screen reminding the audience that coverage of the demonstrations was taking place on the news channel. At eight in the evening, TV3 recovered the spirit of the day with the live broadcast of the institutional act of the Diada from the National Theatre of Catalonia. It was a very elegant and poetic gala, well calculated, which paid tribute in a very pertinent way to the fifty years of the Sant Boi day of 1976. The ceremony even included this year's breakthrough artist, Naim Smaili, author of the Mambo d’en Patufet. The organization did not dare to commission any of his versions of the traditional songbook and he read us a poem by Josep Vallverdú.But either the people in charge of the institutional gala fell short or those at TV3 miscalculated the end time of the event. When it ended, there were still thirteen minutes left until the start of the Telenotícies vespre and the channel did not seem to have the continuity prepared. We viewers spent almost a quarter of an hour mesmerized by an endless festival of advertising. We swallowed up to fifteen promotions for the channel. We saw the long self-promotion ad for 3Cat twice in the same break. We also saw the promotion for the 30 minuts episode on Ceuta twice. They broadcasted the promotion for the Oscar-winning films of the summer Saturdays twice, which was already a bit out of season. And they advertised the broadcast of the play Dones de ràdio on Canal33 up to three times. It was as if the public television had become stuck in a kind of infinite self-referential loop. In thirteen minutes, only six commercial ads to cushion that strange impasse of self-promotions. The return of Raquel Sans to the Telenotícies after many months without the presenter had a disturbing prelude, in which the channel seemed to have lost control. These are circumstances that convey a certain neglect of the broadcast and little capacity for foresight. A television station that is not very precise in its live broadcasts and leaves a feeling of internal lack of coordination, where unforeseen events and blunders are increasingly common. Just like the country, TV3 has seen better Diades.
