T.    wo digital satellite services, Via Digital and Canal Satelite Digital (CSD). both private and financed by subscription, serve 16 percent of Spanish viewers. Four percent subscribe to cable services, although nearly 25 percent of all homes are capable of receiving cable. All the main national channels were obliged by law to broadcast digital signals by April 2002 in preparation for the complete analog switch-off of Spanish TV in 2012. In 2001, only 10 percent of viewers owned digital receivers.

     Eight regional channels also contribute to the Spanish television environment: TV-3 and Canal 33 (financed by advertising and subsidy of the Catalan government), Canal Sur (financed by advertising and subsidy of the Andalusian government), Telemadrid (property of the Madrid regional government, financed by advertising and bank loans). Canal 9 (financed by advertising and subsidy of the Valencian government), TVG (financed by advertising and subsidy of the Gali­cian government), and ETB-1 and ETB-2 (financed by advertising and subsidy of the Basque government). Projects for cable television in 2000 speculated that 3 million TV households will be connected, with 1 million subscribers. Residents in all 50 provinces also have access to dozens of additional low-power, local TV channels (often joined to websites). many of which are owned by local governments and financed in part by advertising. In Barcelona, there are 53 local TV channels; in Madrid, 25; and in Valencia, 30.

     In 1908, the Spanish government enacted a law that gave the central state the right to establish and exploit "all systems and apparatuses related to the so-called Hertzian telegraph, ethereal telegraph, radiotelegraph, and other similar procedures already invented or that will be invented in the future." Scattered experiments in radio-wave communication evolved into regular radio broadcasts by 1921, with such events as Radio Castilla's program of concerts from the Royal Theater of Madrid. In 1924, the first official license for radio was granted, and all experimental stations were ordered to cease broadcasting and request state authorization. The first "legal," radio broadcast began in Barcelona, and, like most radio programs that preceded the Spanish Civil War ( I 93fr39), it was launched by private investors to make a profit. The broadcasting law of 1934 defined radio as "an essential and exclusive function of the state," and the statute was amended in 1935 to confirm that all "sounds and images already in use or to be invented in the future" would be established and exploited by the state.

     The government of the Second Republic (1931-39) kept centralized control over spectrum allocation and the diffusion of costly high-power transmitters while it encouraged independent operators to install low­ power transmitters for local radio. Radio spread with investments in urban zones, and only one significant private chain, the Union Radio, showed signs of economic concentration. The conditions of the Spanish Civil War halted the growth of independent radio when broadcasters were transformed into voices of military propaganda on both sides of the conflict. The leader of the fascist insurgents, Francisco Franco, ordered the nationalization of all radio stations under the direction of the new state, and the existing collection of transmitters merged into a state-controlled network called Radio Nacional de España. Use of the distinct idioms of Basque, Catalan, and Galician was outlawed, and new laws aimed at the press gave the Ministry of the Interior full power to suppress communication that "directly, or indirectly, may tend to reduce the prestige of the Nation or Regime, to obstruct the work of the government of the new State, or sow pernicious ideas among the intellectually weak."

     The first public demonstration of television took place in Barcelona in 1948 as part of a promotion by the multinational communications firm Philips. Experiments continued until October 1956, when the first official TV broadcast appeared on an estimated 600 television sets in Madrid. The initial program consisted of a Mass conducted by Franco's chaplain, a speech by the minister of information and tourism commemorating the 20-year regime, and a French­ language documentary. Much of the early programming came from the U.S. Embassy, but there were also live transmissions of variety and children's shows, and a news program was started in 1957. By 1958, there were approximately 30,000 TV sets in Madrid. From the beginning, Television Espanola (TYE) was supported by advertising, although it also received subsidies derived from a luxury tax on television receivers. In 1959, TYE reached Barcelona via terrestrial lines, and a second studio was soon installed in that city. At the end of the decade, there were 50,000 sets in use. Through Eurovision, Spanish viewers joined European viewers in an audience of some 50 million, and one of the first images they shared was the historic meeting in Madrid between Franco and U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower. By 1962, TYE claimed that its sole VHF (very high frequency) channel covered 65 percent of the Spanish territory and was viewed regularly by 1 percent of the population.

     Television was a strictly urban phenomenon at this time, and there were only two production centers, one in Madrid and one in Barcelona. Transmissions originated from Madrid and were relayed in one direction to the rest of the territory. In 1964, a modem studio and office building were erected in Madrid to commemorate the 28th anniversary of the regime, and a year later, a second channel (TVE-2, UHF [ultrahigh fre­quency]), with production studios located in Madrid and Barcelona, began testing. In 1965, the luxury tax on television sets was eliminated, making advertising the major resource for TYE-1 and TVE-2. Estimates put yearly advertising investment in Spanish television at $1 million by the early 1960s, while airtime increased from 28 to 70 hours a week between 1958 and 1964, rising to 110 hours in 1972. Advertising income for TYE multiplied 100 times between 1961 and 1973, reaching estimated totals of over $100 million.

     In the early 1970s, new regional centers were constructed in Bilbao, Oviedo (Asturias), Santiago de Compostela (Galicia), Valencia, and Seville (Andalusia). The entire system was finally united with radio in 1973 and was placed under the management of one state-owned corporation, Radio Television Espanola (RTVE). The regional circuit was wired into a highly centralized network in which all regional broadcasts were obliged to pass through Madrid. The only centers with the capacity to produce programs of any length were those in Barcelona and the Canary Islands. Although the records of RTVE management during the Franco dictatorship are unreliable, one study for 1976 reported that the Barcelona center contributed 3 percent of the total broadcast hours, followed by the center at Las Palmas in the Canary Islands at 2.9 percent. The rest transmitted a negligible amount of 1.8 to 1.85 percent of the total. The one-way flow of broadcasting from the center to the regions was an effect of the Franco regime's centralism, which kept the regional centers (other than Barcelona and Las Palmas) from connecting with Madrid.

     Television   in  Spain  changed  radically   in  the years following the death of Franco in 1975. In 1980, the government enacted a reform statute that established norms to ensure that a plurality of political parties would control RTVE. The law also stipulated that broadcasting should be treated as an essential public service and that it should defend open and free expression. The statute called for the upgrading of the regional circuit, with a view to this becoming the basis for a network of television stations operated by regional governments, whose recognition in the constitution of 1978 was part of the reorganization of Spain as a "state of the autonomies." The parliaments of the newly formed autonomous governments of the Basque country and Catalonia founded their own television systems: the Basques in May 1982, the Catalans a year later.  These  actions   resulted   in  the   most decisive change in the broadcast structure since radio was nationalized during the Spanish Civil War, as they contravene existing laws that gave the central state the right to control all technology using the electromagnetic spectrum. In response, the central government enacted the Third Channel Law in 1984 in order to regulate the establishment of any additional networks in the regions .

     The Third Channel Law was designed to stabilize the process of decentralization of the television indus­try, and it was based in the principle of recognition for the cultures, languages, and communities within the Spanish territory, entities that had been suppressed during the 40-year Franco dictatorship. The law stipulated that regional networks remain under the state's control and within the RTVE infrastructure. Parliaments in Catalonia, the Basque country, and Galicia resisted control by the central state and set up technical structures that ran parallel to but separate from the national network. Despite ongoing legal battles between the central state and the regions over rights of access to regional airwaves and rights of ownership of the infrastructure, 11 autonomous broadcast companies have been founded, six of which were broadcasting regularly by 1995. In 1989, the directors of these systems agreed to merge into a national federation of autonomous broadcasters, known as the Federación de Organismos de Radio y Televisión Autonómicos (Federation of Autonomous Radio and Television Organizations [FORTA]).

     Between 1975 and 1990, Spanish television emerged from a system of absolute state control to become a regulated system in which both privately and publicly owned channels compete for advertising sales within national and regional  markets.  This  structure was completed with the development of the 1988  law and technical plan for private television. The law furnished three licenses for the bidding of private corporations, a three-phase framework for the extension of universal territorial coverage, and restrictions on legal ownership to promote  multiple  partnerships  (rather than monopoly control) and to limit  foreign  ownership. The technical plan created an independent public company, Retevision, to manage the network infrastructure, abolishing RTVE's economic and political control over the airwaves. As of 2002, all broadcasters must pay an access fee to use the public infrastructure . Regular transmissions from the private companies began in 19 90.

     A 1995 Cable Telecommunications Law limited licensed operators in each market to two, expanded the minimum market size to exclude small operators, and gave licensing power to a central authority. This law was modified in 1996 to return licensing power to local and regional authorities and make it easier for smaller towns to get cable. This legislation forced many of the smaller videos comunitarios to close, although at the turn of the 21st century nearly 500 remained in operation illegally throughout southern and southeastern Spain. Eventually, several large cable companies emerged, with one being operated by the national telephone monopoly, Telefonica, and another run by the national electric utility monopoly, Endesa.

     Despite opportunities for growth in cable, the largest corporations put greater effort in launching new digital satellite services. Sogecable already ran Canal+ and had numerous channels of pay TV in the analog format ready to broadcast over France's Astra satellite. Telefonica's controlling interest in the Spanish Hispasat satellite gave them low-cost access to the DTH satellite market. Telefonica's satellite-TV service, Via Digital, and Sogecable's Canal Satelite Digital (CSD) both began service in I 997. Since 1998, the two have discussed merging, but European Union (EU) regulators had blocked the deal through at least 2001. However, the merger was conditionally cleared by the Spanish government in November 2002. The clearance depends on conditions relating primarily to the merged company's acquisition and broadcasting rights to films and soccer matches. A third digital satellite system, Quiero, began operation in 2000. By 2002, CSD had 1.2 million subscribers, Vfa Digital had 750,000, and a struggling Quiero had 220,000. Basic subscription packages include 35 to 42 channels, although more than 91 separate cable and satellite program channels are available.

     On the regional scale, TV-3 and Canal 33 cover Cat­alonia with Catalan-language programs and have significant spillover into contiguous regions and parts of France, thereby reaching beyond their official audience of 5.8 million. Canal Sur covers the Andalusian audience of 6.7 million. Telemadrid, owned by the regional government of Madrid, reaches an official audience of 4.8 million . Valencia's Canal 9's 3.7 million viewers can watch programs in Valenciano, a language similar to Catalan. Signals ofTVG in Galicia spill over into northern Portugal and parts of Asturias in Spain, bringing Galician-language programming to more than the region's 2.6 million viewers . ETB-1 and ETB-2 cover the Basque country and parts of surrounding provinces to reach beyond the official audience of 2 million; notably, ETB-1 broadcasts in the Basque language (Euskera), while ETB-2 does so in Spanish.

     As of 2002, Telefonica Media owns around 47 per­ cent of Antena 3; other companies that own part of An­tena 3 are the banking group Banco Santander Central Hispano (BSCH}, which owns over IO percent directly as well as another 13 percent through its subsidiary, Mecame; Bank of New York (12 percent); and Recole­tos Cartera de lnversiones (IO percent). Other shareholders control less than 8 percent. Telecinco is owned by the Kirch Group of Munich (25 percent}, Silvio Berlusconi's Mediaset of Italy (40 percent), and two Spanish firms, Grupo Planeta (IO percent) and the Grupo Correo de Comunicacion (25 percent).

     Via Digital is owned by Telefonica Media (approximately 49 percent); Strategic Management  Company ( 19 percent); DTH Europa ( 10 percent); Galaxy Enter­tainment Latinamerica, a DirecTV subsidiary (7 per­ cent); the Madrid-based publisher Grupo Recoletos, a subsidiary of the Pearson group, a British media conglomerate and publisher of The Financial Times (5 percent); Media Park (5 percent); and others (less than 6 percent). CSD is owned by Sogecable (approximately 83 percent}, Warner Brothers (10 percent), Proarsa (4.5 percent), and the Telefonica subsidiary Antena 3 (2.5 percent). Sogecable's business of program production and packaging is vertically integrated with a film production company (Sogecine, also known as Sogetel}, a film buyer (StudioCanal Spain}, TV and film distribution outfits (Sogepac and Warner Sogefilms}, and venues for both theatrical film exhibition (Warner Lusomundo Cines de Espana) and pay TV (Canal+). Major owners of Sogecable are Canal Plus France, a Vivendi-Universal property (21 per­ cent); PRISA (21 percent); and major Spanish banks (30 percent). PRISA owns the largest-circulation newspaper in Spain, El Pafs, and the top commercial radio station, Ser. The Quiero satellite company is owned by Auna (49 percent). Media Park (15 percent), Sofisclave (15 percent), Carlton Communications (7.5 percent}, and smaller investors (13.5 percent).

     Telefonica is the largest company in Spain, Europe's second-largest publicly listed multimedia company behind Vivendi-Universal and the largest single foreign investor in Latin America. It controls the third-largest Internet service in the world (Terra Lycos) and is the third-largest entertainment company in the Spanish­ speaking world (after Argentina's Clarin and Mexico's Televisa). Between 1996 and 2000, Telefonica's market value grew fivefold to $135 billion, making it one of Fortune's top-five global telecom firms. It operates the most extensive telephony network in Spain, with control over about 98 percent of the market. In 1997. while launching Vfa Digital. Telefonica purchased An­tena 3, one of Spain's commercial broadcasters; this acquisition, along with other acquisitions of Spanish film- and video-production companies, initiated a course of convergence to match those of AOL Time Warner and Vivendi-Universal. Telefonica also owns a leading European production house, Endemol, maker of such international  hits as Big Brother. Telefonica's

     Latin American media holdings include ATCO, a holding company that controls Television Federal, S.A.(Telefe}, the leading commercial TV network in Argentina, which sells programming throughout Latin America, the United States, Europe, and Asia. ATCO also controls the AM and FM channels of Radio Continental, the third-largest radio system in Argentina. In addition, Telefonica Media owns Telearte, S.A (the third-ranked commercial TV channel, known as Canal Azul}, as well as a radio network of 300 stations run by Telefonica's Uniprex S.A. (Onda Cero) and Cadena Voz de Radiodifusion S.A.

     TYE- 1, Telecinco, and Antena-3 attract over 75 per­cent of the Spanish television audience. Both channels of TYE typically share a third of the viewers, while the private broadcasters draw 40 to 45 percent of the viewers on average. The regional broadcasters together might bring in 15 to 18 percent of all viewers. Domestically produced programs, especially sports, usually top the ratings, with telenovelas, imported from or co-produced with Latin American suppliers, remaining very popular. Recently, domestic remakes of popular Latin American telenovelas have earned as high as a 31 percent share of the viewers. Additional improvements in domestic production have resulted from the EU policy obligating private TV firms to invest 5 percent of their revenues in European TV and film production. The bulk of imported programs, on average 20 to 30 percent of all programming on the national channels, comes from the United States. This is a change from 1990 figures, when imports took up 40 percent of the program schedule on TVE-1, 33 percent on Andalusia's Canal Sur. 34 percent on Catalonia's TV-3, 35 percent on Galicia's TVG, and 39 percent on the Basque ETB-1. In 1990, Telemadrid showed twice as many U.S. programs as it did Spanish ones, while a ratio of one to one could be seen on Valencia's Canal 9, the Basque ETB-2. and the two private channels.

     Newer services such  as Vfa  Digital  and CSD  ini­tially depended on U.S. programs; together, Vfa Digital and CSD spent more than $3 billion on imports in their first year of operation. Since then, Sogecable has enjoyed exclusive deals with all the major Hollywood studios except MGM, including multi year deals with Paramount, Disney Channels, Universal, and AOL Time Warner; with the latter company. Sogecable has an exclusive contract to develop a Spanish version of the Cable News Network (CNN). Sogecable also acquired rights to televise 20th Century-Fox's recently released films in Spain, including exclusive pay-TV rights to the blockbuster Titanic. The company also benefited when Canal+ 's parent firm, Vivendi, bought Universal. Vfa Digital has held exclusive rights to MGM  films and  its libraries as well as  Playboy  TV.

     BBC World, BBC Prime, and Eurosport. The service also works with national distributor Media Park and draws on its 33 percent stake in Spain's biggest film­ production house, Lolafilms, for additional programming. Apart from movies, satellite TV programming consists mostly of sports and documentaries, staples of domestic production. Soccer dominates, but the celebrity-classic bullfight has also become an important new format, especially during festival seasons in Seville, Madrid, and Pamplona.

     Language is a key characteristic of the Spanish TV culture. The regional firms in the Basque country, Ga­licia, Catalonia, and Valencia were founded with the objective of fomenting the regions' languages and cultures. In Galicia, 99 percent of the people understand Gallego, but only 14 percent actually prefer to watch TV in Gallego. Estimates are that 95 percent of the people in Catalonia understand Catalan, but only a third of the Catalans watch programs exclusively in the idiom. Up to 90 percent of the people in Valencia understand Valenciano, but 12 percent prefer TV only in that language. In the Basque region, as many as half the people claim to understand Euskera, but only one­ fifth of the Basques show strong preferences for their TV in this language. These figures are dwarfed by the scale of the national population, where practically 100 percent of the people understand Spanish. Despite the linguistic, territorial, and financial limitations affecting the regional networks, they manage to retain a stable audience of viewers because of the political and cultural history of centralism in Spanish communication. For both the managers and the audiences of these systems, the presence of the local idiom alongside Spanish recalls the multilingual identity of the regions and helps sustain a sense of place as Spain positions itself within the European Union and opens its borders to globalized audiovisual production.