Actions within the business sphere
The companies that are involved in the Catalan culture market as their number one business priority, and who undertake that work in the quest for modernity and leadership, need to be strengthened and supported. They need to be provided with powerful, efficient tools that enable them to compete on a level playing field with the large majority-language corporations.
Any culture industry that wants to be competitive and efficient requires good information about the market to which it is geared to. This information is essential for detecting tendencies, spotting gaps in the market and for taking investment decisions. Among other instruments available, in Spain there is the Estudio General de Medios (EGM), in France the Études des Moyens (EM) and in Italy the Studi Media (SM). In this country, however, there is no stable infrastructure that focuses on observing and analysing the culture market, and even less so in terms of the Catalan-speaking lands.
With this in mind, Escacc has designed and promoted the Barometer of Communication and Culture (BCC), a permanent observatory of the media market and of the culture industries in the Catalan-speaking lands. It is the most ambitious, precise and complete project of this kind ever.
The Barometer’s chief aim is to provide the culture industries, the public authorities, communication groups and companies from the publicity sector and academic research centres with accurate information about the cultural reality and contribute to the most rational and efficient management possible of the Catalan world of communication.
The measurement, both nationally and county-wide, will be undertaken through 39.154 interviews in 41 territorial units of Catalonia, 7 from the País Valencià, (the Valencian Catalan-speaking lands) and 3 from the Balearic Isles. The study will be extended to the Franja de Ponent, (Catalan-speaking lands bordering Aragon), and North Catalonia (Catalan-speaking lands within France), with 2.553 secondary interviews that will be undertaken every two years. In this way the communication and culture industry, irrespective of the language with which it develops its work, will be able to have the basic information available regarding a market comprising more than 12 million people.
Media Planning Group, Carat and the CCRTV join the Fundacc Board of Trustees
Media Planning Group and Carat, two of the main leading media planning agencies in the Spanish State and in the world, have recently joined the Fundacc Board of Trustees, thus strengthening the presence of private companies from the communication market. These important additions are complemented, moreover, with the entry of the Corporació Catalana de Ràdio i Televisió (CCRTV), the public body that runs the radio and television services of the Generalitat de Catalunya (autonomous government).
With their involvement, Media Planning Group and Carat show the conviction that the data supplied by the Barometer will be of great use to the media agencies when strategically planning the publicity campaigns of the big advertisers.
As far as the CCRTV is concerned, their inclusion on the Board of Trustees means the inclusion into the project of highly relevant communication media outlets, such as TV3, Canal 33, K3, 3/24, 300, Catalunya Ràdio, Catalunya Informació, ICat Fm and Catalunya Música.
The Flaix Group, new incorporation
The Flaix Group has become part of the Barometer. With this incorporation, the Flaix Group, a private communication group, joins the Board of Trustees of the Foundation, alongside the other entities from the communication and culture sector, media associations and media agencies.
The Flaix Group, which has established itself since 1992 as the number one radio communication group specialising in music, has a presence in Catalonia, the Balearic Isles, País Valencià (the Valencian Catalan-speaking lands) and Andorra. It is currently owner of two leading radio stations, Flaix FM and Ràdio Flaixbac, aimed mainly at a young and adult public, with basically musical contents and with a scheduling directed towards achieving a high level of interaction with listeners. Among the future projects of the Flaix Group features the relaunch and development of Flaix TV with digital platform (TDT).
According to the declarations of Miquel Calçada, the co-founder of the Flaix Group, “the Barometer will enable us to have in-depth knowledge of our listeners, both in terms of their profiles and their geographic location within the area we cover. We will thus be able to design contents and scheduling with more precision”.
