FTA wins Spanish election


Details

Juan Fernandez Gonzalez

| 22 December 2015




After proving essential during the campaign period, free-to-air (FTA) television was the preferred medium to follow Spain's general election live.



Over 15 million Spaniards chose a FTA channel to watch the live vote counting and the analysis of the new political situation. Atresmedia was the leading media group with 29% share and over four million viewers through the laSexta and Antena 3 networks.


Mediaset's Telecinco (10.5%) and Cuatro (6.1%), and the country's public broadcaster RTVE (10.5%) were also among the most watched channels during the election's day. Atresmedia was also leader in social TV, with laSexta's hashtag #la6elecciones being the most used one to comment the political event on Twitter.

But TV was not only a winner during the election day, as public debates on FTATV, interviews with the different candidates and analysis programmes had, for the first time, an important presence on TV schedules during the months prior to the election. Besides, both politicians and media analysts agreed about this election being the first in which TV and social media presence was more important than public meetings or traditional advertising.

Indeed, a Kantar report prior to the campaign pointed one in two Spanish would choose TV as main source of information for the election. An Atresmedia-organized debate was the campaign's most followed TV programme.