The media in Spain. Television wars

The government continues to have too much influence over the media

SPANIARDS have a phrase to describe the attitude of the country's media giants as they await the government's decision on the allocation of digital television licences: "callarse como una puta", to shut up like a whore. Why publish a report that may offend the Socialist government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, if it could jeopardise your share of the digital cake? This was what one journalist was told by his bosses when he asked why his report describing Tony Blair's lukewarm reception of Mr Zapatero's plan to cure the ills of Islamic radicalism through an "alliance of civilisations" had not been published.

In a country whose bestselling newspapers are mostly football-oriented, it is the all-powerful television that really matters. Mr Zapatero's government has caused considerable upset by appearing to lean too far towards the leftish Grupo Prisa, run by Jess Polanco. The group, which owns the newspaper El Pais, runs the country's only analogue pay-television channel, Canal Plus, through its sister company, Sogecable (this monopoly arose from a licence given by a previous Socialist prime minister, Felipe Gonzalez). Until the analogue shutdown and conversion to digital, planned for 2010, the government will allow Canal Plus to broadcast without the requirement for a set-top decoder, with the exception of a few high-value programmes such as football coverage.

Competitors complain that this will enable Sogecable to gain an unfair advantage, because it will have a chance to win a much bigger audience before the analogue shutdown, while still maintaining its existing subscriber base. In what seems sure to be an overcrowded field, the government has hinted that it will grant two digital licences apiece to the existing broadcasters (Sogecable, Telecinco, Antena 3, Veo TV and Net TV); another to an analogue station yet to be granted a concession during the transition phase; and a further two licences in 2010.

The government has presented the plan as essentially neutral and technical, but the centre-right opposition People's Party (PP) is concerned that Grupo Prisa is in fact becoming an unassailable force in the radio, television and newspaper market. As the PP knows from its own experience, political control of the media is a vice that is hard to kick. Only last week, the PP president of the Madrid region, Esperanza Aguirre, dished out local television broadcasting licences to sympathisers ranging from the Roman Catholic Church to right-wing media barons.

With the private television market being carved up in a predictably partisan way, what of Mr Zapatero's plan to put an end to government interference in state television and radio? It looks likely to fizzle out too. A council of wise men, convened to find ways of creating a more independent operation, has submitted a report. But few have hopes for any great change so long as state television depends on government grants, and its director-general is chosen by a parliamentary committee.

With the argument over digital television licences likely to remain live right up to the next election, due in three years' time, the media will continue to be cautious over criticising the government. And Mr Zapatero, like all his predecessors, will come to seem insincere in his stated ambition of eradicating government influence over the media.

Article suggests that the Spanish government has too much influence over the media.