Media wars.

People that follow closely media developments in Spain might be noticing a slight change of attitude towards the Government by El Pais newspaper in the last few months. Several op-eds and reports lately are starting to be more critical than usual of the Zapatero Government. The reason for this is called La Sexta, the new TV channel in Spain and a new media group growing around it.

PRISA media group, biggest in the Spanish-speaking world and owner of El Pais, has been the sole supporter of Socialist governments in Spain for a long time against the army of right-wing media groups supporting PP. PRISA furthermore, owns the most influential media outlets in the country, Cadena Ser (radio), El Pais (newspaper) and Digital + (digital TV). Are they the most influential because Spaniards are more left-leaning and therefore prefer PRISA outlets? or is it because of the quality of their content? Whatever your opinion is noone can deny the inmense blow that losing PRISA's support would mean to PSOE's ability to get its message out to the public. So the question I present to you here is... what's going on with PRISA and PSOE?

In March 2006 La Sexta a new left-leaning channel appeared in Spain. It was given a public license strongly supported by Zapatero as a new media group able to diversify the media ideological spectrum in Spain. Zapatero wanted to have both PRISA and La Sexta on his side to be able to counterbalance the information attacks from the right-wing media more numerous in Spain. But obviously PRISA wasn't happy to see their monopoly of the left-wing audience shared with a new outlet. PRISA however it is known for producing very rigorous information and analysis and their international prestige was also at stake. They decided to wait and see the development of the new channel. In 2007, after their success with the emission of the football World Cup and the basketball World Cup (that saw Spain win their first ever world title bringing in massive audiences) La Sexta also acquired partial emission rights for the national football tournament, La Liga. PRISA started getting worried because their new open channel, Cuatro, wasn't performing as expected and was directly competing with La Sexta in terms of audience ratings. It was at this point that Zapatero decided to push further to consolidate the new channel as the vanguard of a new media group to develop from it. When the new Minister for Justice was appointed in February 2007 Zapatero decided to give the exclusive to La Sexta breaking a long tradition of giving it to PRISA outlets first. This action shook the foundation of the special relationship PSOE-PRISA. The final development in this process has been the court case being fought between La Sexta and PRISA over which La Liga matches can be shown by whom every weekend according to their respective TV rights, also known as the football war.

The shaken relationship between PRISA and PSOE is founded in one single development. PRISA has seen its business interests challenged by La Sexta with now means greater competition for an all-powerful media group. The fact that Zapatero hasn't been as friendly to PRISA as other PSOE leaders before has spread paranoia across PRISA that has decided to flex its muscles to get back their advantageous position.

PRISA is a very prestigious organisation, known for the quality of their content and analysis, able to draw in the most influential minds to contribute to its outlets. PRISA is no News Corp. and the late Jesus de Polanco no Rupert Murdoch. PRISA will stick to its left-leaning tradition in the future because they consider PP a total no-go option (especially after Rajoy decided to boycott the media group after a comment by Polanco criticising PP's attitude in Congress). Furthermore La Sexta isn't even close to be a serious contender to their power over Spanish public opinion today, at least not yet. But PSOE should be worried about pissing them off too much. They haven't damage PSOE that much yet, but they definitely could. Although I believe the relationship between both sides is honest and one of respect, PSOE got more to lose of an open war than PRISA does. Promoting La Sexta is a good strategic move to counterbalance the outrageous bias by the right-wing media in Spain controlled by both PP and the Catholic Church. But shouldn't be incompatible to keeping the special relationship with PRISA that's been so helpful so far.