Spain’s TV ad revenues down 50% since 2007
November 22, 2012
From David Del Valle in Madrid
The financial crisis is wreaking havoc with the Spanish broadcasters, who have now seen their ad revenues decline 50 per cet since 2007.
At the annual meeting of UTECA, the private TV association, President Antonio Fernandez-Galiano warned of the critical financial situation of the channels and envisaged a gloomy year in 2013. “The situation (ad TV market) is even worse than expected and only the merger process of private TVs (the merger between Tele5 and Cuatro and La Sexta and Antena 3) has let us not to aggravate it”.
Fernandez-Galiano urged the government not to worsen broadcasters financial situation with the cost of the second digital migration to allocate the so-called digital dividend and was in favour of an agreement to avoid a new financial burden.
At the meeting, the vice president of the government, Soralla Sainz de Santamaria, announced that the administration will revise the 1999 law whereby broadcasters have to dedicate 5 per cent of their revenues to finance Spanish and European cinema productions. Broadcasters have repeatedly demanded that the obligation to finance those productions be lifted.
All broadcasters agreed on the fact that the internationalisation of their content is key to weather the present financial storm.