As a young democracy, Spain had huge expectations for media pluralism after the end of Franco's dictatorship in 1975. However, structural and historical forces have imposed a more prosaic evolution, where the regulation of media concentration has had more to do with media groups' interests than societal goals. At first, Spain's media ownership regulations laid down important limitations on media ownership, but as technology developed, these constraints were progressively relaxed through a large set of complex legal amendments in non-specific legislative acts. However, the absence of cross-media ownership rules is crucial to the understanding of the Spanish media system's dynamics and players. Spanish media have evolved from small newspaper companies to big multimedia groups. Fierce competition in an increasingly fragmented scenario is the result. This absence has led to the creation of five or six multimedia groups in Spain, which have made structural pluralism possible at a national level.
The Mapping Digital Media project examines the global opportunities and risks created by the transition from traditional to digital media. Covering 60 countries, the project examines how these changes affect the core democratic service that any media system should provide: news about political, economic, and social affairs.Since 2005, Spain has designed and implemented aggressive digitization policies that secured the switchoff of analog television in 2010, and developed the digital terrestrial television (DTT) market to saturation point. As a result, cable and satellite subscription services have experienced some decline since 2008. The rapid rise of free-to-air (FTA) digital television has not, however, been replicated in radio, where take-up of the assigned digital audio broadcasting (DAB) standard has been marginal, with little promise of imminent significant growth. This is attributed to a policy focus on digital television, the absence of a digital radio publicity campaign and a switch-off deadline, and the cost of upgrading to digital radio faced by consumers and broadcasters alike.The roll-out of broadband infrastructure has been successful, accounting for 99 percent of all fixed-line connections in 2010. But the consumers' cost of connection remains one of the highest in the European Union (EU), and an enduring digital divide is reflected in the fact that fixed-line internet connections reached only 22 percent of households in 2010.The report also calls for the setting up of an independent regulatory authority on audiovisual matters; the effective implementation of self-regulatory codes concerning media and children; a comprehensive policy program involving concerted action by state institutions, universities, and journalism associations/unions to tackle problems of journalists' pay and conditions; the effective implementation of ethical codes and principles to challenge the abusive dominance of opinion and ideological polarization in the media; the setting up by the Government of a radiocommunications agency to handle radio spectrum policy;the delegation of DTT licensing to this radiocommunications agency; improved publicity for public tenders through the approval of a law on transparency and citizens' access to public information; the promotion of media literacy in school curricula; and finally, the protection of RTVE's political and financing independence to ensure the provision of non-partisan and good-quality journalism to Spanish society.
The Mapping Digital Media project examines the global opportunities and risks created by the transition from traditional to digital media. Covering 60 countries, the project examines how these changes affect the core democratic service that any media system should provide: news about political, economic, and social affairs.Since 2005, Spain has designed and implemented aggressive digitization policies that secured the switchoff of analog television in 2010, and developed the digital terrestrial television (DTT) market to saturation point. As a result, cable and satellite subscription services have experienced some decline since 2008. The rapid rise of free-to-air (FTA) digital television has not, however, been replicated in radio, where take-up of the assigned digital audio broadcasting (DAB) standard has been marginal, with little promise of imminent significant growth. This is attributed to a policy focus on digital television, the absence of a digital radio publicity campaign and a switch-off deadline, and the cost of upgrading to digital radio faced by consumers and broadcasters alike.The roll-out of broadband infrastructure has been successful, accounting for 99 percent of all fixed-line connections in 2010. But the consumers' cost of connection remains one of the highest in the European Union (EU), and an enduring digital divide is reflected in the fact that fixed-line internet connections reached only 22 percent of households in 2010.The report also calls for the setting up of an independent regulatory authority on audiovisual matters; the effective implementation of self-regulatory codes concerning media and children; a comprehensive policy program involving concerted action by state institutions, universities, and journalism associations/unions to tackle problems of journalists' pay and conditions; the effective implementation of ethical codes and principles to challenge the abusive dominance of opinion and ideological polarization in the media; the setting up by the Government of a radiocommunications agency to handle radio spectrum policy; the delegation of DTT licensing to this radiocommunications agency; improved publicity for public tenders through the approval of a law on transparency and citizens' access to public information; the promotion of media literacy in school curricula; and finally, the protection of RTVE's political and financing independence to ensure the provision of non-partisan and good-quality journalism to Spanish society
As a young democracy, Spain had huge expectations for media pluralism after the end of Franco's dictatorship in 1975. However, structural and historical forces have imposed a more prosaic evolution, where the regulation of media concentration has had more to do with media groups' interests than societal goals. At first, Spain's media ownership regulations laid down important limitations on media ownership, but as technology developed, these constraints were progressively relaxed through a large set of complex legal amendments in non-specific legislative acts. However, the absence of cross-media ownership rules is crucial to the understanding of the Spanish media system's dynamics and players. Spanish media have evolved from small newspaper companies to big multimedia groups. Fierce competition in an increasingly fragmented scenario is the result. This absence has led to the creation of five or six multimedia groups in Spain, which have made structural pluralism possible at a national level.
The article details the process of launching, peak and restructuring of the sector of the digital pay television in Europe. It illustrates how the European Commission Competition policy imposed a fierce fight between platforms within Italy, United Kingdom and Spain, and why the standardization of decoders by European Union failed. The fusions and bankruptcies of the sector in 2000-2004 make patent that the economic, social and polítical perspective were too optimistic.
Abstract This article tries to examine the latest European Commission (EC) policy developments in the media sector through the new concept of soft regulation. Much criticized for its media policy approaches, the EC seems to try to rebuild media freedom and media pluralism protection foundations at the EU level with several new initiatives based on soft regulation. This article analyses these soft-regulatory media policy actions to answer the following questions: Have soft-regulatory measures been a good option to improve media pluralism policy at the EU level? Are there better mechanisms that EU can employ to assist Member States in promoting media pluralism? The aim of the research is to see whether these new EC debates and softregulatory initiatives have made a real change in the traditional way that EC has been dealing with audio-visual matters or whether it is only repeating old answers to old questions.
Abstract Can a uniform policy for media pluralism be adopted across the 28 Member States of the European Union through the involvement of independent regulatory authorities? According to the authors, the chances remain remote due to political and stakeholder opposition grounded in diverse structural, cultural, political, and economic interests. Based on a review of key documents from diverse sources, and case studies in Hungary and Italy, it appears that the goal of an EU-wide collaborative network of financially and politically independent audiovisual regulatory authorities, with common standards, faces significant challenges. However, the authors see hope in the increased debate on the topic, and suggest that some movement in that direction may yet be possible.
Abstract Can a uniform policy for media pluralism be adopted across the 28 Member States of the European Union through the involvement of independent regulatory authorities? According to the authors, the chances remain remote due to political and stakeholder opposition grounded in diverse structural, cultural, political, and economic interests. Based on a review of key documents from diverse sources, and case studies in Hungary and Italy, it appears that the goal of an EU-wide collaborative network of financially and politically independent audiovisual regulatory authorities, with common standards, faces significant challenges. However, the authors see hope in the increased debate on the topic, and suggest that some movement in that direction may yet be possible.
Media Pluralism represents an indispensable part of a democratic society, the balance that the media have to achieve in conveying a message to the end user. It has been a controversial and widely debated concept in media policy for years. Lately, a new notion has been brought to the attention of media scholars: media governance. For the last decade, both notions have been increasingly present in policy debates focusing on media freedom, accountability and media power. The two notions, media pluralism and media governance, are analyzed here in an attempt to bring them together and to verify whether governance provides a better solution for the protection of media pluralism. The concept of media governance is overtaking the traditional notion of media regulation and includes the elements of universal participation, accountability, evaluation and inclusion of more players. Finally, governance's value and utility as a media policy and conceptual tool to protect pluralism is assessed through the proposal of a new theoretical model. ; El pluralismo en los medios de comunicación es un concepto muy debatido desde hace décadas en el campo de las políticas de comunicación. En cambio, la gobernanza de los medios es un término relativamente nuevo y polisémico que permite ampliar el campo de las políticas de comunicación a nuevos actores e instrumentos. En la última década, ambos conceptos han estado presentes en los debates cuando se aborda la libertad de información, el poder de los medios y la responsabilidad de público y operadores. En este artículo, los dos conceptos se analizarán por separado para trazar su evolución teórica y conceptual. En el análisis de la gobernanza de los medios se constatan nuevos elementos que participan en la ecuación: la participación cívica, la necesidad de evaluación y la responsabilidad de los medios. Además, se estudia el valor y utilidad del nuevo concepto de gobernanza en las políticas de defensa del pluralismo y la inclusión de nuevos actores en el proceso. Finalmente, se propone un ...
A partir de las distintas definiciones de cultura –popular y elitista–, se analiza la realidad del canal cultural en las principales plataformas digitales y en la oferta de canales en abierto públicos y privados de los cinco países europeos con los mercados de televisión más importantes: Alemania, Reino Unido, Francia, Italia y España. Los cincuenta canales hallados se agrupan por temáticas, según la extensión del contenido (generalista o temático) y la titularidad (pública o privada). De estas clasificaciones se desprende que los canales culturales generalistas son operados por las televisiones públicas, mientras que los operadores privados prefieren los canales culturales temáticos. Por último, exceptuando el caso de ARTE, los únicos canales culturales transeuropeos son los de matriz norteamericana como Discovery Channel o National Geographic
This article describes and analyses the regulatory frameworks and the current pluralism protection policies in the United States and several countries of the European Union (Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain). The data obtained allowed a qualitative assessment to be carried out, through a comparative analysis, in order to identify certain similarities and some significant differences. Thus, it was found that pluralism protection is a common denominator in the communication policies of these countries. However, regulatory and legislative differences depend on social, geographical and media contexts, and time variations in the application of policies depend on audiovisual media market liberalisation processes.
Frente a la crítica tradicional que señala a la televisión pública centrada en las audiencias como una televisión más cercana a los modelos comerciales que al servicio público, la literatura contemporánea sitúa, precisamente, en la participación de las audiencias una de las claves de la televisión pública en la era de la digitalización y la convergencia (Castro 2012; Doyle 2010; Kjus 2009; Bardoel 2007). El artículo se centra en el estudio de la participación en las televisiones públicas autonómicas, en particular en dos cuestiones: 1. Si la variedad de cauces de participación existentes en las producciones crossmedia –programa de televisión que cuenta con web propia, foros de expresión de opinión y cuentas sociales en Twitter y Facebook– aumentan la participación efectiva de las audiencias; y 2. Si esta participación puede encuadrarse en el cumplimiento de las obligaciones de servicio público de televisión, especialmente, de las de proximidad. Metodología: Se parte de un análisis descriptivo de la literatura sobre participación de las audiencias y de las formas de participación promovidas por las políticas europeas, estatales y autonómicas. A partir de los resultados obtenidos, se estudia el caso de "la noche de…" un programa de ETB 2. Resultados: Se comprueba que la atención creciente a la participación del público, tanto en la literatura europea y española como en la regulación existente, no tiene un reflejo proporcional en la realidad de la gestión de las televisiones públicas, en particular en las televisiones públicas autonómicas.
Introducción. Objeto: Frente a la crítica tradicional que señala a la televisión pública centrada en las audiencias como una televisión más cercana a los modelos comerciales que al servicio público, la literatura contemporánea sitúa, precisamente, en la participación de las audiencias una de las claves de la televisión pública en la era de la digitalización y la convergencia (Castro 2012; Doyle 2010; Kjus 2009; Bardoel 2007). El artículo se centra en el estudio de la participación en las televisiones públicas autonómicas, en particular en dos cuestiones: 1. Si la variedad de cauces de participación existentes en las producciones crossmedia -programa de televisión que cuenta con web propia, foros de expresión de opinión y cuentas sociales en Twitter y Facebook- aumentan la participación efectiva de las audiencias; y 2. Si esta participación puede encuadrarse en el cumplimiento de las obligaciones de servicio público de televisión, especialmente, de las de proximidad. Metodología: Se parte de un análisis descriptivo de la literatura sobre participación de las audiencias y de las formas de participación promovidas por las políticas europeas, estatales y autonómicas. A partir de los resultados obtenidos, se estudia el caso de "la noche de…" un programa de ETB 2. Resultados: Se comprueba que la atención creciente a la participación del público, tanto en la literatura europea y española como en la regulación existente, no tiene un reflejo proporcional en la realidad de la gestión de las televisiones públicas, en particular en las televisiones públicas autonómicas. ; Introduction. While the model of public service television that focuses on audiences has been traditionally criticised for being more akin to the commercial television model than to the public service broadcasting model, contemporary literature points out that in the age of digitisation and convergence audience participation is precisely a key element of public television (Castro, 2012; Doyle, 2010; Kjus, 2009; Bardoel, 2007). This article examines audience participation in Spanish regional public service television and, particularly, tries to determine two questions: 1) whether the variety of participation channels provided by crossmedia productions -a TV show's website, discussion forums and Twitter and Facebook accounts- increases effective audience participation; and 2) whether this participation can be said to contribute to the fulfilment of the mission of public service television, especially proximity television. Method. The study first provides a review of the literature on audience participation and the forms of participation promoted by European, national and regional policies. The TV show La noche de…, broadcast by the Spanish network ETB 2, is subsequently analysed based on the results of the literature review. Results: The increasing attention paid to audience participation in the European and Spanish literature and legislations is not proportionally reflected on the reality of public service television, and particularly of regional public service television corporations.
