Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0336/03367.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 16KB | 282 lines

$Unique_ID{COW03367}
$Pretitle{379}
$Title{Spain
The Media}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Embassy of Spain, Washington DC}
$Affiliation{Embassy of Spain, Washington DC}
$Subject{radio
television
public
years
audience
medium
spanish
stations
channels
daily}
$Date{1989}
$Log{Table 33.*0336701.tab
Table 34.*0336702.tab
Table 35.*0336703.tab
}
Country:     Spain
Book:        Spain 1989
Author:      Embassy of Spain, Washington DC
Affiliation: Embassy of Spain, Washington DC
Date:        1989

The Media

     During the first thirty years of the Francoist dictatorship, the press
was subjected to severe previous censorship. In 1966, with the Law of Press
and Printing, previous censorship was abolished, but a system of sanctions was
imposed which resulted in multiple fines, suspensions and even the closure of
the offending publication, if it was accused of transgressing the limits of
freedom of expression established by the dictatorship or of conspiring
against the founding principles of the regime. The Spanish Constitution of
1978 established the freedom of the press.

A Daily Press Which Has Undertaken Technological Restructuring but which has
a Low Readership

     The most negative aspect of the Spanish system of communications is the
low circulation of the daily press. In 1988, 80 newspapers were sold per 1,000
inhabitants, an average which is very inferior to that in other European
countries. It is true that different studies have ascertained that the rate of
readership per copy is fairly high, which means that the figures given above
must be multiplied by the number of times each paper is read.

     In Spain, some 75 dailies exist, the majority of which are local or
regional. The general tendency is the past few years has shown a stabilization
of readership figures for the Monday through Friday editions and a sharp
increase for weekend editions. This has permitted, for example, El Pais to
attain a circulation of one million copies on Sundays, a hitherto unheard-of
figure in the history of Spanish journalism. In its Monday to Friday editions,
this paper has a circulation of less than 400,000 copies.

     The two leaders in sales, El Pais and ABC, are dailies of national
circulation published in Madrid, although with regional editions in some of
the Autonomous Communities. They are followed by La Vanguardia and El
Periodico, published in Barcelona and read essentially in Catalunya and, to a
much lesser extent, in other parts of Spain.

[See Table 33.: Media consumption in Spain]

     Within the daily press, the sports newspapers stand out for their very
high readership. Among the ten most widely sold dailies, two papers are
exclusively dedicated to sports (AS and Marca). Another type of newspaper
which has experienced an extraordinary success in the last few years is the
economic journal. Not only have a large number of publications devoted to
this theme appeared, including dailies, but also the most important newspapers
are publishing special supplements centered on economic themes.

     The greatest problem confronting Spain's daily press in the past years
has been technological reconversion, which has been successfully surmounted
by the majority of newspapers, thanks to, in great part, the financial support
of the Administration that has helped to subsidize them. The Administration
has also undertaken, together with the owners of the majority of the Spanish
dailies, a programme to foment press readership among students.

[See Table 34.: Readership of the 20 principal daily newspapers in Spain (in
thousands)]

The Magazine Market, Although With Great Oscillation in Its Circulation,
Caters Mainly to Women

     Within the press, the most vigorous area corresponds to magazine
publication. In 1988, the Office for the Justification of Circulation (OJD),
the body that controls Spanish magazine sales, registered more than 200
magazines. The most notable was the feminine magazine market, which
compensates, to a high degree, the low level of daily newspaper readership by
women.

     In both the case of newspapers and of magazines, part of these
publications's problems is produced by infrastructural deficiencies, one of
the most serious being their distribution. Such distribution problems have
generated specific customs among their readers, and practically all sales are
made directly through kiosks, without having developed the habit of
subscription, which is almost completely inexistent. This fact creates
important variations in the market. Magazines suffer from great oscillations
in their circulation; depending, in great measure, to the success of each
issue to conquer the interest of the reader at the moment of purchase, based,
to a certain extent, on its cover.

     In the case of newspapers, on the contrary, to the low sales must be
added two phenomena that decisively condition the development of this medium.
One is the loyalty of the reader to one single paper, owing to its relation to
her/his vision of the world and ideology, elements considered by all studies
as crucial determining factors. The other is the changing of hands of each
copy. Every daily is normally read by four or five persons; therefore, the
figures of readership registered by the General Study of the Media (EGM)
multiply the sales figures recorded by the OJD.

Radio Has a High Audience and in One Decade Has Doubled the Number of
Listeners

     In Spain, radio is considered a very influential medium, owing to its
very large audience, much greater than in any other European nation. 52.9% of
Spaniards over 14 years of age listened to the radio every day in June 1987.
This percentage represents some 15 million listeners, a figure that has
remained stable during the last eight years.

     However, Spanish radio difusion went through a very difficult situation
up to little more than a decade ago, as a consequence of the political control
of the medium by the dictatorial regime. Although the first stations began to
operate in 1924, the medium was not widely listened to until the middle of the
1930s. The outbreak of the Civil War paralysed the development of the radio,
which would be subject to severe restrictions from then on. Since 1939, news
broadcasts were prohibited, as this was the exclusive right of the network,
Radio Nacional de Espana, directly controlled by the Government. Only groups
close to the regime were given licenses, and in 1960, all radio stations were
legally obligated to broadcast simultaneously the news programmes of Radio
Nacional de Espana.

     The medium would undergo a total change with the recovey of freedom. In
1975, the average number of radio listeners was calculated to be around 7
million. From this date on, the transformations were radical and were produced
over a very short space of time. The promulgation of the Decree of Informative
Liberty in 1977 and the concession of new licenses for FM stations, between
1979 and 1981, were two decisive events of that period.

     In the immediate future, the imminent launching of private television is
a principal factor of uncertainty for radio, because it is expected that its
impact will be reflected both in audience levels and the advertising market.

     At present, the most evident trend is a constant increase in audience
levels for FM stations, in contrast with the constant decrease in importance
of Medium Wave Frequencies (MW). In 1988, 64.78% of radio listeners over 14
years of age, listened to FM and 40.95% to MW. The difference in these figures
has not ceased to widen over the past few years and it is predicted that it
will continue over the next years. The commercial structure of Spanish radio
is based on a mixed system permitting the coexistence of public and private
stations.

Public and Private Radio, Medium Wave and FM Share Audiences

     With respect to public radio, the two great public networks, Radio
Nacional de Espana and Radio Cadena Espanola, merged in 1988. With the union
of these two, the resulting network, also called Radio Na