Forum debates Spain's linear TV audience collapse
A forum thread links a drop from 9 to 6 million viewers in four years to suspected flaws in the audimeter system.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
Forum debates Spain's linear TV audience collapse
A forum thread claims that on a Thursday night in 2020, 16 million people watched television in Spain. According to the same calculation circulating in the thread, this figure fell to 9 million in 2021 with the return to work; to 8 million in 2022; to 7 million in 2023; and to 6 million in 2024. These data, presented by one participant, depict a downward slope that has not reversed for even a single year. Even discounting the pandemic effect—that lockdown which kept the entire country glued to screens—the decline argued in the thread is nearly 3 million viewers in just four fiscal years. Linear television has not collapsed suddenly: it is bleeding out.
How many people still watch TV in Spain?
The thread’s answer: fewer than a decade ago. The most-watched news broadcasts, those of Antena 3, gather about 2 million viewers and represent 22% share in their slot, according to the debate. This would imply that at 15:00 there are around 8 million people watching television across all of Spain. A figure that, compared to the 20 or 25 million handled in previous decades, alone explains the panic among broadcasters.
The pattern described in the thread is well-known: either you worked or you watched TV. Now, neither happens. Computers, platforms, and mobile phones have eaten prime time. And it is not just a matter of young people: the average viewer of generalist television has aged along with the medium, and every year a segment of that audience dies off without being replaced.
The audimeter as usual suspect
There is a theory that reappears whenever data is published: the measurement system is obsolete. The audímetro (people meter), that device installed in a few thousand households, remains the basis of the entire advertising market. With internet-connected television, data could be measured in real time with surgical precision. That this is not done fuels suspicion, according to some participants, that the real figures would be even worse for broadcasters, and that sustaining the fiction of mass audiences is more profitable than publishing the truth. Advertising, after all, is paid for estimated impact, not actual impact.
Television as an ideological apparatus
The other major argument running through the thread is not technical, but political. News programming is perceived as a propaganda mechanism: only bad news, polarization between two parties, and a thematic agenda repeated across all channels with slight nuances. The result, according to this reading, is that the remaining viewer does not seek information, but company. TV no longer competes with Netflix: it competes with silence.
And there lies the paradox pointed out in the debate. The channels that most criticize social media are those that have seen their audience migrate to them. The viewer has not stopped consuming audiovisual content: they have stopped consuming it in the place where they were forced to swallow ads, recycled content, and editorials disguised as news.
YouTube, Twitch, and video on demand
The comparison is inevitable. A YouTube channel with two people, a table, and a camera can outperform a TV show with studios, production, makeup, and a cost structure counted in tens of thousands of euros per day, as argued in the thread. Television cannot compete in agility, editorial freedom, or cost. All it has left is the inertia of an audience that keeps it on out of habit.
Some argue that the viewer who moved to the internet is not freer: they consume more content, faster, and with poorer filtering. The difference is that now they believe they choose. At least, television could be turned off.
The family facing the shared screen
The decline of television also tells a social story. There was a time when the family sat together to watch the same thing. That has broken down: each member has their own screen, algorithm, and schedule. Television was the last collective ritual remaining in many homes, and it died without anyone holding a funeral for it.
Can it be recovered? With these data, the question is not whether linear television will survive, but how long it will take to disappear completely.
A forum thread claims that on a Thursday night in 2020, 16 million people watched television in Spain. According to the same calculation circulating in the thread, this figure fell to 9 million in 2021 with the return to work; to 8 million in 2022; to 7 million in 2023; and to 6 million in 2024. These data, presented by one participant, depict a downward slope that has not reversed for even a single year. Even discounting the pandemic effect—that lockdown which kept the entire country glued to screens—the decline argued in the thread is nearly 3 million viewers in just four fiscal years. Linear television has not collapsed suddenly: it is bleeding out.
How many people still watch TV in Spain?
The thread’s answer: fewer than a decade ago. The most-watched news broadcasts, those of Antena 3, gather about 2 million viewers and represent 22% share in their slot, according to the debate. This would imply that at 15:00 there are around 8 million people watching television across all of Spain. A figure that, compared to the 20 or 25 million handled in previous decades, alone explains the panic among broadcasters.
The pattern described in the thread is well-known: either you worked or you watched TV. Now, neither happens. Computers, platforms, and mobile phones have eaten prime time. And it is not just a matter of young people: the average viewer of generalist television has aged along with the medium, and every year a segment of that audience dies off without being replaced.
The audimeter as usual suspect
There is a theory that reappears whenever data is published: the measurement system is obsolete. The audímetro (people meter), that device installed in a few thousand households, remains the basis of the entire advertising market. With internet-connected television, data could be measured in real time with surgical precision. That this is not done fuels suspicion, according to some participants, that the real figures would be even worse for broadcasters, and that sustaining the fiction of mass audiences is more profitable than publishing the truth. Advertising, after all, is paid for estimated impact, not actual impact.
Television as an ideological apparatus
The other major argument running through the thread is not technical, but political. News programming is perceived as a propaganda mechanism: only bad news, polarization between two parties, and a thematic agenda repeated across all channels with slight nuances. The result, according to this reading, is that the remaining viewer does not seek information, but company. TV no longer competes with Netflix: it competes with silence.
And there lies the paradox pointed out in the debate. The channels that most criticize social media are those that have seen their audience migrate to them. The viewer has not stopped consuming audiovisual content: they have stopped consuming it in the place where they were forced to swallow ads, recycled content, and editorials disguised as news.
YouTube, Twitch, and video on demand
The comparison is inevitable. A YouTube channel with two people, a table, and a camera can outperform a TV show with studios, production, makeup, and a cost structure counted in tens of thousands of euros per day, as argued in the thread. Television cannot compete in agility, editorial freedom, or cost. All it has left is the inertia of an audience that keeps it on out of habit.
Some argue that the viewer who moved to the internet is not freer: they consume more content, faster, and with poorer filtering. The difference is that now they believe they choose. At least, television could be turned off.
The family facing the shared screen
The decline of television also tells a social story. There was a time when the family sat together to watch the same thing. That has broken down: each member has their own screen, algorithm, and schedule. Television was the last collective ritual remaining in many homes, and it died without anyone holding a funeral for it.
Can it be recovered? With these data, the question is not whether linear television will survive, but how long it will take to disappear completely.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (104 replies).
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