The Colour of Money: The Role of Spanish Private Broadcasters in the Reform of RTVE during Rodríguez Zapatero’s Legislatures (2004-2011)

Drawing from the concept of policy capture as defined by Picard (2020), and the critical perspective of Freedman (2014), this research aims to determine whether private broadcasters played a decisive role in the elimination of advertising from Spanish Public Broadcaster (RTVE) in 2009, or if it was a government decision to ensure the successful deployment of Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) and to garner political support in a context of severe economic crisis. This investigation is based in a qualitative methodology by making interviews with elite and top-level experts, which allows for the description of the internal media policy making beyond legal and documentary analysis. The goal is to understand from 10 primary sources how and why the decision was made to eliminate advertising funding on RTVE in 2009. The findings indicate that the relationship between the government and the private broadcasters was very close due to the need to unblock DTT and allow the emergence of two new channels, La Sexta and Cuatro. However, the key factor that triggered the hasty elimination of advertising on RTVE in 2009 was the severe economic crisis that began a year earlier, which fully impacted the sector advertising revenues. It is concluded that the pressures from private operators to remove advertising on RTVE were immense, and the government yielded out of necessity and convenience. Therefore, there was a media policy capture in the development of communication policies during the second term of Rodríguez Zapatero by A3Televisión and Telecinco.