Background

The Diputació de Barcelona (Barcelona provincial authority) is convinced that the local media are a crucial building block of a free, plural and participative society. For this reason, in the 1980's it gave pioneering support to the local press and, from the 90's onwards, has backed the setting up of specific organisations and media to support community media (radio and television stations and digital dailies) while at the same time disseminating local news and current affairs.

In this setting, in 1994 it helped to set up the Consorci de Comunicació Local (Local Communication Consortium, or CCL), a body which serves local public radio stations while at the same time, through the Agència de Comunicació Local (Local Communication Agency, or ACL), reaching listeners throughout Catalonia through the broadcasting of COMRàdio, which emphasises local news.

In 1999 the Xarxa de Televisions Locals (Local Television Network, or XTVL) was set up under the name of Circuit de Televisions Locals (Local Television Circuit) as a structure to support local television stations, and at the same time the digital daily lamalla.cat appeared. lamalla.cat was originally set up as a news portal to disseminate local news in Catalan. In 2006 XN emerged from the XTVL as a community news agency. The Xarxa Audiovisual Local (Local Audio-visual Network, or XAL), set up in 2004, is a public company which, with the backing of the Barcelona provincial authority, runs the XTVL, XN and lamalla.cat.

Cooperation between the XAL and the ACL led in 2007 to the appearance of the first issue of XARXACOM, a quarterly magazine concentrating on the realities of the local audio-visual sector.