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Digital switchover was achieved in Soria (province of the Autonomous Community of Castilla-León) at 12:00 on 23 July 2008, making it the first Spanish province to complete the switch-off of the analogue terrestrial television platform. Soria’s pilot project has benefited more than 51,000 inhabitants – 54% of the population of the province – and approximately 18,500 households. The city of Soria was selected in 2005 for a DTT pilot intended to expose any implementation issues. In October 2006, it was confirmed that switch-off in the province would take place in 2008 and in September 2007 the project...

In its decision of 5 August 2008, the European Commission gave its approval until 31 December 2011 of the state aid given to Galician language film productions, with a support budget of EUR 3.1 million. The planned measures had been notified by the Spanish authorities on 23 January 2008. The objective of the scheme is to support and promote audiovisual productions that show the cultural aspects of Galicia using the Galician language, contribute towards the diversity of film in the Autonomous Community of Galicia and cannot be produced without contributions from public funds. The types of film supported...

A recent decision of the Tribunal Supremo, sala de lo penal (Spanish Supreme Court - TS), through its criminal division, on a child pornography issue (Judgement STS 19327/2008, dated 9 May of this year), created considerable debate as regards the implications for P2P use and the potential conflict with both privacy protection and telecoms secrecy and inviolability. Essentially, the TS concluded that upon connection to a P2P network, in this case Emule, an implicit consent is provided by the user, known and accepted by said user, which overrides the secrecy of communications, meaning that data provided...

On 6 May 2008, the Commission sent Spain a reasoned opinion for failing to comply with European advertising rules. The move constitutes the second and final stage in the infringement procedure initiated in July 2007, before the case is referred to the European Court of Justice. According to Article 18(1) of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (former article 18(2) of the old Television without Frontiers Directive), “the proportion of television advertising spots and teleshopping spots within a given clock hour shall not exceed 20%”, i.e. 12 minutes per hour. The Commission takes the term “advertising...

On 28 December 2007, the Spanish Parliament finally approved the Ley 55/2007 de 28 de diciembre, del Cine (Cinema Act). After many discussions and negotiations, this controversial act has been passed by general consensus, including five of the six amendments introduced by the Senate. The final text includes most of the changes that were introduced in the proposed law. The most controversial amendment requires that, in order to be considered a Spanish production, 75% of a film’s cast must be either Spanish or from another EU member state, and that, in any case, the director must be Spanish or European....