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Media Landscape - Spain

INTRODUCTION

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Located in the European southwest, Spain is a vast and very populated country of the European Union, thanks to its more than half a million square kilometers and its 44.1 million inhabitants, according to the census of 2005. Its GDP is at the average level of the 25 EU countries: 19,637 euros per capita in 2004. The administrative structure of the country is divided in 17 autonomous communities, distributed in 52 provinces. Its official language is Spanish, although in some of its autonomous communities other minority languages have an official status as well: Catalan and Valencian (spoken by 17% of the population), Galician (7%) and the Basque (2%), respectively.

Since the end of Franco’s dictatorship in 1975, Spain is governed by a parliamentary political system under a regime of constitutional monarchy. The country joined the European Union in 1986 and, since then, it has obtained an important and sustained economic growth that placed it as the tenth most powerful economy of the World in 2005. Such economic wealth, together with the tourist resources of the country, have attracted a growing number of immigrants that have established their residence in Spain in the latest years and have become a relevant target for the media companies; in 2005, 9% of the population were foreigners.


1. WRITTEN PRESS

The newspaper readership has not varied substantially in the last decade, but its percentage remains remarkably lower than that of other EU countries. According to Estudio General de Medios (EGM), the main audience survey of printed, audiovisual and on line media in Spain, 41.1% of the Spaniards read newspapers in 2005. By the same time, the percentage of magazine readers was of 53.8%, and that of supplements, 27.7%.

At the beginning of 2005 Spain counted with 135 pay newspapers, 576 magazines and 19 supplements. In contrast to these numbers, there were more than 7,000 free publications, newspapers and magazines.

The free press is reaching great audiences and is gaining remarkable commercial strength. Since December 2005, the most read newspaper is 20 Minutos, a free newspaper of national scope launched on February 3, 2000, with an average of 2,298,000 daily readers. The second most read paper is the traditional newspaper El País, with a readership of 2,048,000.

The newspapers, with their circulation stagnated, maintain their income rates thanks to product distribution and advertising. The advertising income of Spanish newspapers was the second best result of the last decade in 2005.

Regarding business press, the circulation is especially declining and the increasing force of free publications can be seen. In 2006, Spain had four business newspapers of national circulation, of which only two remain strictly traditional newspapers. The other two, on the contrary, have a mixed circulation model since the end of 2004, according to which 20% of the circulation is sold and the remaining 80% is given for free.

The magazine market, also stagnated, is led by feminine magazines.


2. AUDIOVISUAL MEDIA

There is an increasing fragmentation of television market. In 2006, the television in Spain included five offers. Firstly, analogical television, which is still the main way of watching television in Spain. There is a public entity of radio and television, RTVE, which broadcasts through two analogical channels of national scope: La Primera and La 2. In addition, other twelve similar public bodies are grouped around the Federación de Organismos de Radio y Televisión Autonómicos (Federation of Autonomous Bodies of Radio and Television; FORTA). Each one of these regional public broadcasters has one or two analogical television channels. The analogical networks of private television companies are Antena 3, Telecinco, Cuatro and La Sexta. With regard to local television stations, there are not any precise data, since the map of local television and radio companies is very fragmentary. The transition from the analogue television to the digital system –so called “analogical blackout”– will have to conclude by April 2010.

Seconldy, since November 2005, the Spanish households equipped with a decoder may receive 20 channels of Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT). At the end of 2005, there was an estimated number of 850,000 decoders of DTT in Spain.

Thirdly, satellite television is offered since 1997. The penetration of cable television is very low comparing to other analogical and digital television formulas. Regarding internet television (IPTV), Telefónica, the most powerful and spread telecommunications company been promoting the ADSL technology not only by offering Internet connection, but also interactive television services. It also started to offer a new service of television by ADSL in 2005, called Imagenio. Since the beginning of 2006 other ADSL operators have also begun to offer similar services, such as Jazztelia TV by the Jazztel Telecommunications Company.

According to the annual report Guía de la Radio en España 2005, there were 4,877 active radio stations at the end of 2004. Out of this total number, 2,655 were legal radio stations, including both private and public, and another 1,803 stations –45.5%– were transmitting without legal license. There is a broad public national network owned by Radio Nacional de España (National Radio of Spain; RNE), a division of RTVE.

The audience leadership belongs to private companies, both in radio and in television. There is a significant decline of the national public broadcasting company, RTVE.

So far, the DAB radio broadcasting technology has totally failed. Very few people have bought digital radio devices and, considering this lack of audience, the broadcasters have done very little investment in that technology. Meanwhile, the cheaper Internet radio and, more recently, the podcasting, have gained great popularity as new digital alternatives for the analogical broadcasting.


3. NEWS AGENCIES

Other many agencies –in fact, most of them– work in a regional level or they are specialised in specific subjects or news formats.

The leadership belongs to the public news agency, Agencia EFE. Founded in 1939 and nowadays present in more than 100 countries, Agencia EFE is the world-wide leader in Spanish language, with a staff of 1,175 people in 2004. Just like RTVE, it is a public company owned by the State.

In addition to EFE, there are another fifty agencies of diverse characteristics. Some of them, such as Europa Press, the second biggest news agency, are of national scope, while many smaller and specialized news agencies are regional.


4. ONLINE MEDIA

The rate of Internet use is low comparing to the EU average, only 34.4% of the Spaniards were Internet users at the end of 2005. Nevertheless, Internet continues its slow growth in Spain and, in fact, it was the only mass medium whose consumption grew in 2005.

There is a great number of on line publications, but only few of them are well developed, both in editorial and business terms.

The on line market leadership belongs to Elmundo.es, which is the second among the pay newspapers. At the end of 2005 Elmundo.es had 7.4 million unique users monthly.


5. MEDIA ORGANIZATIONS

Although there is a significant amount of media related professional associations, the Spanish journalists have low rates of associationism. The press associations are grouped around the Federación de Asociaciones de la Prensa de España (Federation of Press Associations of Spain; FAPE), the main organ of representation, coordination and defense of the journalistic profession in Spain.

There are half a dozen trade unions of journalists, of regional scope, which defend the improvement of the working conditions of journalists. These organisations are grouped in the Federación de Sindicatos de Periodistas (Federation of Journalist Trade Unions; FeSP).

The three most important associations of media publishers are: AEDE for newspapers, UTECA for commercial television and AERC for commercial radio.


6. NATIONAL MEDIA POLICIES

The Spanish Constitution protects the freedom of expression, the clause of conscience and the professional secret as basic rigths.

The broadcast media have specific laws for their contents and schedules of emission, inspired by the European regulations. The content providing through Internet is regulated by one specific law since 2002. No specific laws apply to printed media.

The newspapers and magazines do not receive subsidies, except for some publications written in minority languages. The VAT of publications is of 16%, like any other consumer product. Digital televisions have a reduced VAT of 7% since 1 January 2006.


7. ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEMS

There are not professional councils with authority to punish bad practices or abuses made by journalists. These cases are solved by conventional courts of justice. However, two regional Audiovisual Councils were created lately, in Catalonia (2000) and Navarre (2001), to look after the contents of the audiovisual sector and their respect to the laws. The Government also announced the creation of a new national Audiovisual Council before 2008. On the other hand, some newspapers have their own newsroom statutes.

Five newspapers (El País, La Vanguardia, La Voz de Galicia, El Correo Gallego and El Punt) and one magazine (PC Actual) have an ombudsman. The weekly news magazine Tiempo has a council of readers.


8. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND FUTURE TRENDS

Two deeply controversial questions arose in 2006: the legislative proceeding of a Statute of the Professional Journalist, and the plans for the economic rationalisation of RTVE. It is a public entity, which belongs to the Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales (State Society of Industrial Participations, SEPI). This company had a debt of more than 7,000 million euros at the end of 2005. Due to this economically unsustainable situation, the Government announced an industrial rationalisation of the company, which included harsh measures such as to reduce the number of workers to 4,855 in the forthcoming years.


9. ONLINE RESOURCES

  • Asociación para la Investigación de Medios de Comunicación (Association for the Mass Media Research; AIMC) .
  • Infoadex .
  • Guía de la radio (Radio Guide) .
  • Información y Control de Publicaciones (Information and Control of Publications; Introl) .
  • Instituto Nacional de Estadística (National Institute of Statistics; INE) .
  • (Agenda de la Comunicación) .

Bibliography

  • AEDE (2006). Libro blanco de la prensa diaria 2007. Madrid: AEDE.
  • Fundación Auna (2005). eEspaña 2005. Informe anual sobre el desarrollo de la Sociedad de la Información en España. Madrid: Fundación Auna.
  • Salaverría, R. (coord) (2005). Cibermedios. El impacto de internet en los medios de comunicación en España. Sevilla: Comunicación Social Ediciones y Publicaciones.
  • Segarra, L. (2005). Guía de la radio en España 2005. Barcelona: Guiadelaradio.com.
  • Telefónica (2005). La Sociedad de la Información en España 2005. Madrid: Telefónica I+D.
  • WAN (2004). World Press Trends. 2004. Paris: World Association of Newspapers (WAN)


10. AUTHOR

Ramón Salaverría rsalaver@unav.es (PhD), lecturer of Journalism at the School of Communication, University of Navarra (Pamplona, Spain).


11. MEDIA RESOURCES

Newspapers

Audio/Visual Media

Television

Radio

Media Institutions

Blogs/Civil Media

Excerpt from EUROPEAN MEDIA GOVERNANCE: THE NATIONAL AND REGIONAL DIMENSIONS, published by Intellect (http://www.intellectbooks.com).

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