How to travel Europe every week in less than 20 minutes

Prices have gone up all over Europe. It is something that citizens have been noticing for months. The informative program Art Europe Weeklyfrom the public channel Arte, analyzes it in depth using as an example the baguette French, declared just a few days ago intangible heritage by Unesco. But in its Spanish version, the journalist Marc Campdelacreu provides a piece of information before giving way to the video report: bread has risen 15% in Spain in the last year. When the format analyzed the absence of the One Love inclusive bracelet a few weeks ago in the European teams that had decided to wear it during the World Cup in Qatar, he himself recalled that the Spanish woman had refused to wear it for weeks. It is about providing a local context within a more global perspective on the issues that concern the inhabitants of the continent.

The space, co-financed by the European Union, can be enjoyed every Sunday in the digital edition of EL PAIS starting this December 11. Its presence in various media comes thanks to the exclusive distribution agreement that the chain has signed with this newspaper and five other Europeans: le soir from Belgium, Gazeta Wyborcza from Poland, kathimerini from Greece, L’Internazionale from Italy and Telex from Hungary.

“It is a space that looks at the Europe that is in many other places outside the politics of Brussels; who thinks of his people”, comments its editor-in-chief, Carolin Ollivier, from the writing of the program in Strasbourg, in a building overlooking the Parliament and the European Council in a French city physically and historically close to Germany and which she herself defines as “a place of nobody and everyone at the same time”.

This new weekly program lasts less than 20 minutes and has been conceived for a purely digital environment. With a very specific structure divided into three blocks, it is designed to be consumed on demand and on mobile devices. And, to reach as many viewers as possible and fulfill its public service function, it records versions in four different languages ​​(Spanish, French, German and English) presented by local journalists. It also subtitles its English version into four other mainland languages ​​(Italian, Polish, Greek and Hungarian). Each installment begins with a topical issue, which is analyzed with a friendly and close tone, “but also rigorous and didactic,” says Ollivier. A second report, something more timeless and with a more social tone, allows the viewer to get to know our European neighbors better in matters that are not usually placed on the front page of the daily news. And, in order to maintain the original essence of Art, the space closes with a third piece that grants culture an importance similar to that of political and social issues, something practically unheard of in the press, radio or television media. Art Europe Weekly thus adds to the growing information offer of the channel, together with the daily spaces journal art Y Art Journal Juniorwhich offers the news to children’s audiences.

Campdelacreu, one of the two professionals in charge of the Spanish version, went through the RTVE news and was deputy director of The objective of the Sixth. Her partner Laura Ribes comes from Valencian public radio and several local French media. Since Spanish and Anglophone journalists joined Arte’s editorial team, the point of view of the channel’s news has begun to be broader, moving away from the Franco-European axis that has defined it for decades, admits Ollivier. The Spanish viewer may be familiar with the animalist fight against bullfighting that the space explains in one of its installments, but perhaps they will learn something from the references that their reports make to those of France and Portugal.

In addition to the translators, an important part of the team are those in charge of the program’s graphic image, who try to capture with their visual force from a tablet, a telephone or a computer “a young audience that no longer sits in front of a television” . So is the network of correspondents in Paris, Berlin and Brussels and of independent collaborators that the chain has in other relevant parts of Europe.

Connect through Culture

Arte was born at the beginning of the nineties with a very unusual television proposal. Financed with German and French public money, the channel broadcast to a large part of the continent via satellite, with the desire to feed European sentiment and brotherhood through culture. By expanding its radius of action to the digital universe, it has become a multilingual free platform that collects all kinds of creative content on demand, regardless of its linear programming.

Through the Spanish version of Arte.tv, under the supervision of its editor Raquel Santos Ortiz, the user can take a look, for example, at the Staatsoper in Berlin and its staging of the Turandot of Puccini and the rest of the current European season of opera and dance, a report on Barcelona by the writer Carlos Ruiz Zafon, the emerging cinema of the region, unpublished television series on the big platforms and documentaries on science, history and technology.

The programming of all editions of Arte is to a large extent of its own creation and is also fed by the permanent collaboration with European public channels, such as RTVE, and the co-production of cultural content with companies from the continent. He collaborated with the Galician Portocabo in the creation of Iron, the successful Movistar Plus+ series. And its subsidiary Arte France Cinema participated in that of the last two winners of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes festival: titaneby the French Julia Ducournau, and The triangle of sadness, by the Swede Ruben Östlund, among many other winners at film festivals around the world. Every December, its ArteKino digital festival selects 12 European titles —in this edition you will find Brave Flashby Ainhoa ​​Rodriguez and The planet by Amalia Ulman—who are competing for the audience award.

One of the great bets of the pan-European chain is the Arte Concert portal, with a huge selection of musical recordings of all genres. The catalog hosts live and delayed broadcasts, by having access to the great European stages and festivals, of the performance of the rapper MC Solaar with the Philharmonie de Paris at the Prix de Laussane dance. It also shows original shows, such as tape, which explains from unprecedented perspectives all kinds of sound trends, from Rosalia to Scorpions. Although, explain those responsible, it is curiously rock metal, very popular among the German public, the genre that is sweeping views.

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