SPANISH MEDIA

1.- Historical overview and Normative

Like in the rest of European countries, the beginnings of the Spanish journalism are based in its literature, in its historical discoveries (for example the discovery of America), invents like print or religious acts. Some publications progressively became official and with them journalism emerged. Radio started officially in the 1920´s and the first television broadcasting attempts in the first third of the 20th century. Until 1966, mass media in Spain worked according to the guidelines imposed by Franco's dictatorial regime after his victory in the Spanish Civil War (1939). The conditions for media development were tightly controlled and repressed. The transitional period to democracy started in 1975 with Franco’s death and this fact gave way to the formation of the present structures in the mass media. Since then, the Spanish Media has passed through a continuous changing process, along with the dynamic changes in the national and international media industry.
The necessity of establishing clear norms with law range to the media operating comes from freedoms and rights explained in the Spanish Constitution and from political pluralism. The broadcasting public service in radio and TV is inspired in the general values that manage every social media in the State, like objectivity, veracity and impartiality of information, separated from opinion, private life and other rights specified in Constitution. The main organizations which are measuring media data are “Estudio General de Medios”, “Sofres” and “Oficina de Justificación de la Difusión”.

The activity of the press is free. Therefore, there are no limitations to ownership of publications. However, the participation of press companies in conventional radio and television is regulated in order to guarantee the plurality and to avoid monopolisation. Nevertheless, since 1996 government alternation between Popular Party (conservative) and Socialist Party, and their interested relations with big communication groups, has caused continuous changes in communication laws, leading the media industry into a concentration process, with a few ones (media companies, telecommunication operators and banks) attending all the different activities and markets.


2.- Spanish Press

In 1697, the “Gazeta de Madrid” became the first weekly Spanish newspaper. More intellectual, cultural and satirical publications emerged in the XVIII century, with the beginning of critical journalism. In 1758 it started the first daily newspaper, Diario de Madrid. At the end of that century, press suffered a strong censorship by the Spanish Inquisition. After Napoleon’s invasion and the Independence War a great period commenced, promoting the “political press” or “party press” that will last till the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939.
In the second half of the XVIII century a relevant change occurred: the beginning of “Informative journalism”, the seed of the present newspapers. With the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera in 1923 and the II Republic afterwards, “opposition press” (against the established power) gained in importance. In 1936 started the Civil War and press was reduced to a mere explicit propagandistic medium. In the areas dominated by the right wing the newspapers from the left wing were confiscated and used by their own interest and the other way round.
In the first years of Franco dictatorship press was strongly censured and so everything related against the military dictatorship was wiped out. After 1966 it started a slight permissiveness for newspapers, mostly for those published weekly or monthly which did not have such a big control as the daily ones.
The Spanish constitution of 1978 meant a great change with a new freedom of speech. In 1976 appeared El País. It became a huge success and reached the leader position until our days. It is the basis of the most powerful communication group in Spain, PRISA. Diario 16 is another big newspaper, linked to the group Grupo16, and utterly important during the transition to democracy.
At present, there are more than 100 newspapers. El País, is the leader with 450.000 copies. ABC and El Mundo, the new newspaper of the owner of the former Diario 16, are the next. Each of them is linked to a specific political stream, in this order, left (PSOE political party), monarchical and right (PP political party). And important fact is the existence of autonomous regions (Comunidades Autónomas, CCAA), in which regional newspapers have bigger success than national ones. This is much more powerful in the regions with nationalist streams like Catalonia, Galicia and the Basque Country.
The second newspaper with the most daily circulation is a sports one, Marca. The main cities with the bigger economy and the most important football teams (as Madrid and Barcelona) held the most important sports newspaper with a great success like As, Sport or El Mundo Deportivo.
The general daily rate is 4.215.000 printed newspapers with 12.227.000 readers (38% population) and decreasing. It is a low rate because there is not a big reading tradition in Spain and there is no popular daily press (yellow press) that raises this figure like in many other countries like The United Kingdom. The majority of these newspapers offer an alternative electronic edition on the internet allowing its readers, in general terms, to have a quick access to much more updated information.
Apart from the newspapers, there are about 350 weekly and monthly publications. Most of them have low circulation (over 500.000 copies). The two main ones, Pronto and Hola, are both dealing with “heart press” (yellow press).

3.- Spanish Radio

While in the USA, in England and France radio already existed in the second decade of the XXth century, in Spain the first clubs of radio amateurs appeared. In February 1924 the first Barcelona Radio Broadcasting Association was created. Progressively new associations were founded in other Spanish towns which gave impulse to the foundation of radio stations(Radio Club de Vizcaya y Radio Club Sevillano).
The first Spanish radio station, which started broadcasting with a certain frequency, was Radio Ibérica, which took the name after the enterprise which founded it. In its beginnings the radio programs were: music, some conferences divulgating cultural or scientific information and the weather forecast. Nevertheless, shortly after the offer was wider: news, Jazz concerts and programs for children. People were really passionate about the radio. Governments soon realized about the importance of this new media.
Before the Spanish Civil War there were only private stations which subsisted mostly from advertisement and they even had to give 20% of the advertisement´s profits to the State. When the Spanish Civil War started, July 18th 1936, the two confronted parties saw radio as a perfect propaganda and information vehicle. It was a fast media which could cover what was happening minute after minute giving it to the listeners in real time. Besides it was the only media which reached the smallest rural places and the coast. In 1939, shortly before the war ended, the most important Spanish radio station was created, Radio Nacional de España (Rne). During the whole 36 years of dictatorship all news broadcasted by all radio stations had to be the ones given by Rne, strictly controlled by the dictatorship. The radio station which was known by that time as Unión Radio, created in 1925, became what is nowadays the radio SER (Sociedad Española de Radiodifusión)– the second most important radio station since then. Being the first one right winged and the second one left winged.
After the death of the dictator General Franco, censorship increased because the immediate future was unknown, and people were afraid of it. But two years later, in 1977, an historical change happened in radio history: radio stations were no longer obliged to broadcast the news from Rne, they could broadcast freely their own news. Radio became similar to the one we know today. Nowadays in Spain there are plenty of radio stations, a few national, and most of the others regional or local – this is due to the fact that all autonomies aim to bring regional news to their listeners.
With the Internet emergence, radio changed a lot. Like in other countries, many radio stations offer their listeners the opportunity to have access to it through internet. Besides, they provide information about their workers, they can work with images and listeners have a much easier access to give feedback via e-mail.
The latest technological change in Spain happened in 1999 with the approval of the Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB). It is a European radio system that is standardized by the European Telecommunications Standardization Institute (ETSI), which among another aspects, it aims the end of interferences in radio and the reception without echo. It is predicted to have it generalized all over Spain in 2008.

4.- Spanish Television

On October 28th 1956 it started the official broadcasting television in Spain. The first television station was called Televisión Española (TVE). It took several years that people from the whole country could have access to it. Television arrived to the following regional areas between the years 1959-1964: Castilla La Mancha and Castilla León in 1959, in Valencia and Bilbao in 1960, in Galicia and Seville in 1961 and Canary Islands in 1964. Until the year 1959 there were no televisions sets produced in Spain. They were considered luxurious products, so only around 50.000 families could buy them. At the end of the sixties there were around 3.500.000 TV sets -around 40% of the homes of the country. It also emerged the so called net of teleclubs in rural areas for people that could not afford a television set. In 1966 appeared a second channel of TVE, called TVE-2. This channel broadcasted cultural programs, sports and public services. This decade was the so called, “Golden Age of TVE”.
Television played a relevant role during the period known as the transition from dictatorship to democracy (1976-1982). Firstly, TVE transition tried to erase the social values that the dictatorship had made permanent in the Spanish society and inculcate imageries of a democratic Spain (all TV news deliverers were substituted in 1982). Secondly, it was created a new Statue for Radio and Television with the object to establish a democratic juridical normative to order the whole Spanish audiovisual system. Thirdly, they tried to elaborate much more pedagogical programs to spread democratic values. In the period from 1976-1982 familiar programs were disappearing progressively being substituted by the ones reflecting contemporary tastes. The hours of transmission augmented and it emerged a way to order the system through audience rating. It also appeared the first generation of autonomic televisions that formed the FORTA (Autonomic Televisions Federation). Among them we find: EITB, TV3, TVGa, Canal Sur, Tele Madrid, Canal 9. In the second half of the nineties some new autonomic TVs and the second channels of the first generation of autonomic TVs were incorporated.
The most outstanding fact in the nineties was the appearance of three private televisions of national coverage: Antena 3, Tele 5 and Canal +. The first two were completely free and the last a subscription TV channel. All leader televisions (TVE-1, Antena 3, Tele 5 and the FORTA) had to adapt to new rules and a much more competitive background in which TVE-1 dominance was almost absolute. Later on, this changed gradually and Tele 5 and Antena 3 were placed in second and third position respectively.
In the last decade the basic criteria changed due to the competitiveness of the landscape. The programs were and are arranged according to what the audience demands. Their main purpose is to get the highest audience rating. In 1997 the two digital satellite platforms began operations: Canal Satélite Digital (CSD) and Vía Digital. The cable services, which include Internet and television, began in 1998. There started about 700 public and private local television stations, most broadcasting terrestrial but also via cable networks. In December 2004 Terrestrial Digital Television (TDT), the most effective and without cost way to receive television signal, emerged, establishing the future disappearance of the present analogical system in April 2010.


SOURCES



http:www.xpress.es/radiocable/histo.htm

http://www.rtve.es/

http://recursos.cnice.mec.es/media/television/bloque1/index.html

http://www.ejc.nl/jr/emland/spain.html

http://www.quadraquinta.org/documentos-teoricos/cuaderno-de-apuntes/brevehistoriaprensa.html