Características de los informativos de TVE, Tele 5, Antena 3, La Sexta y Cuatro: análisis de 149 informativos (2018-2024)

Introduction: The “Observatory of the Quality of Information on Television”(OCITV) aims to determine the formal characteristics, content and treatment of the main state television news programs in Spain.Methodology: Preference was given to quantitative content analysis on a sample of 149 news programs (6.289 news items).Results: The average duration of the news programs is around 37 minutes and that of the news items that make them up is 47 seconds. There is a predominance of the queue format and the news genre. There is a preference for information framed in Spain. There is a strong presence of the citizenry as an informative agent that addresses information and that is addressed in the media. The President of the Government of Spain is the person with the highest news presence. Most of the information fits into the area of Society. Neutral current affairs image and informative tone prevail.Discussion: Quantitative analyses always present limitations and weaknesses, but they are undoubtedly valuable. TheOCITV offers a relevant volume of analysis that allows projecting trends and validating with statistical results hypotheses from other research, such as the trend of television information to spectacularization and infotainment.Conclusions: In general, it can be said that news programs have a high audiovisual rhythm, superficial journalistic treatment of the topics, deficient use of sources and a notable imbalance of gender presence. They are very biased towards the male presence. There is a strong influence of hyper-events or news booms around a given topic. Different ways of dealing with information through the use of images and rhetorical tones were observed among the different channels analyzed.