RTVE has devoted the same amount of time to PP and PSOE during the election period.
Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE) has managed to maintain a balance in the coverage of the Partido Popular and the Partido Socialista during the election period.
Each of these parties have monopolised the broadcasting of La 1 and Canal 24 Horas for 25.8% of the total presence of political forces between 7 and 23 July, a period that covers the election campaign, the days of reflection and the appointment to the polls, according to the data we have had access to from the information provided by Hallon, a company specialised in media intelligence.
In this period, the PSOE has dominated RTVE broadcasting for 7 hours and 53 minutes, only 50 seconds more than those reserved for the PP. A greater time difference is registered in the television exposure of its leaders.
The socialist candidate and President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, starred in the public television broadcast for 5 hours and 1 minute (29.5%), followed by the popular leader, Alberto Núñez-Feijóo with 4 hours and 22 minutes (25.8%); Santiago Abascal of Vox, with 2 hours 46 minutes (16.3%) and Yolanda Díaz of Sumar, with 6 minutes less (15.7%).
As this newspaper reported, in the first weeks of the electoral period – the pre-campaign and the first days of the campaign – RTVE gave greater prominence to the PP and its candidate Alberto Núñez Feijóo. However, the exposure of the PSOE and Sánchez has been progressively equal to the former.
One of the reasons for this greater balance is the three-way debate that RTVE organised last week between Sánchez, Abascal and Díaz, without the presence of Feijóo, who declined the invitation to participate.
Feijóo’s absence from the debate and cancellation of some events due to a lower back pain he was suffering from significantly altered the amount of screen time of the candidates last week, compared to previous weeks. Sanchez got 29.4%, followed by Abascal with 23.9%, Diaz with 23.2% and Feijóo with 20.6%.
If this quantitative analysis of the exposure of formations and leaders on public television omits Canal 24 Horas and focuses exclusively on La 1, it can be seen that PSOE, Vox, Sumar and their respective candidates outperform PP and Feijóo.
The centre-right party accounted for 13.5% of the time on La 1 reserved for political forces in the entire electoral period analysed. This is practically half of what the PSOE accumulated, with 25.7%, and well below Vox (20.6%) and Sumar (19.6%).
The same order is registered in minutes of broadcasting of interventions by their leaders -in part, as indicated, conditioned by the three-way debate-. Sánchez dominated 30.1% of the time reserved, Abascal 24.5%, Díaz 23.4% and Feijóo 11.9%.
Nationalist parties
As for nationalist forces, Bildu was the brand to which RTVE devoted the most time, with 1 hour and 19 minutes, to the extent that it managed to monopolise one out of every three minutes reserved for this type of party (33.3%). It is followed by ERC, with 1 hour and 6 minutes (27.6%); PNV, almost 1 hour (24.9%); between 9 and 12 minutes, UPN, BNG and Coalición Canaria; and with less than 3 minutes, Junts.
Of all these parties, the leader with the most speaking time was ERC’s Gabriel Rufián (23.7%), followed by PNV’s Aitor Esteban (21.5%), both with around 20 minutes of speeches.
