La Sexta turns on Spain's PM Sánchez in fight over state advertising

La Sens's shift is not ideology, it's institutional advertising

La Sens's turn against the Spanish Government is best understood by looking at the balance sheet rather than the style guide. The channel that for a decade acted as a megaphone for the space to the left of the PSOE (Spain's Socialist Party) now appears entrenched in daily criticism of the Executive, and the trigger does not seem to be an ideological conversion. It's a pie. The distribution of institutional advertising and the arrival of a new free-to-air channel on DTT have turned what looked like an editorial line into a revenue negotiation. When the pie shrinks, friendships cool.

Institutional advertising: the tap that keeps free-to-air TV afloat

Private free-to-air television lives off advertising, and within advertising there is one line item that does not fluctuate with the economic cycle like the rest: institutional campaigns. Ministries, regional governments and town councils buy airtime using criteria that are not always audience-based. It's stable money, and in a market where major advertisers have shifted to digital platforms, that line has become the lifeline for several operators.

Hence any movement in the distribution has immediate consequences on the schedule. It is argued that, after years of crisis and with the traditional advertising market at rock bottom, institutional advertising is almost the only lifeline keeping free-to-air broadcasting groups afloat. If that's the case, whoever controls the tap controls the tone.

A new channel in a market that isn't growing

The second factor is the entry. The authorisation of another free-to-air channel on DTT adds a competitor to a market that isn't growing: the total audience of traditional television has been splitting between more supply and less viewing time for years. There are no new viewers. There is only redistribution, and the so-called channel 7 comes in to fight over an already allocated share.

Here arises the doubt nobody has fully cleared up: whether this new channel competes with brands that already exist or overlaps with a previous blue-logo project. The confusion is not trivial, because it decides whether the move is an expansion of supply or a simple transfer of viewers and revenue. In a market with no growth, an entrant can only subtract. And the one that subtracts is usually the one already there.

RTVE is taking the audience that sustained the narrative

The third element is the flight of viewers. The public broadcaster has strengthened its position in audience segments that previously fed the pogre private channels. It's the same viewer, with the same concerns, who has changed the remote. If the audience leaves, the editorial narrative that kept it loses its commercial function: it no longer sells anything.

Hence the bewilderment. The turn against the Government can be read as a leap forward: if the left-wing audience has moved on, the only new pool available is on the other side. The consequence is uncomfortable, and some say it bluntly: going against Sánchez now doesn't make anyone the good guys of the movie. Only opportunists.

The calendar, the keys and the 2008 precedent

On the political front, the matter reads as a struggle for control of the narrative. The keys are attributed to three actors —the regional baron who breaks ranks, the opposition leader who won the election, and Catalan separatists— and none of them is making a move. Meanwhile, the leader of EH Bildu has come out to defend the Executive, which many interpret as a sign that the alternatives are not ripe.

The Prime Minister himself has fed the fire. Asked whether he will call elections, the answer in the interview excerpts is that there are colleagues who ask him to do so precisely because they believe he would win a larger majority, and that he cannot call them for partisan interest. The nuance that he had previously said «me permitirá la broma» (roughly, "he will allow himself the joke") spread faster through messaging groups than through the news.

The precedent invoked is 2008. Back then, Zapatero's decline was read in the media as a change of cycle and millions of Socialist voters disappeared from the public space for months. Nobody admitted having voted for the one who was leaving. The question hovering now is whether the channels' turn is the same mechanism: preparing the ground before the floor moves.

Where the analysis gets stuck

There are anecdotes that sum up the mood better than any column. In TV gossip circles there is speculation that the flagship satirical show may bring back the presidential puppet it already used with the PP's former treasurer, this time aiming at the occupant of La Moncloa (the PM's official residence). The metaphor circulating to describe the channel's situation is an April '45 Berlin. Exaggerated, like all war metaphors, but telling.

From here the analysis gets stuck. If the turn responds to an advertising calculation, it should reverse as soon as the next institutional contract is signed, and that doesn't square with the intensity of the change. If it responds to an internal renewal operation within the PSOE, it would take more than TV talk shows: it would take a no-confidence motion that nobody is tabling. And if it's pure audience opportunism, the calculation doesn't add up either, because the viewer won over from the right has had somewhere to watch the same thing for twenty years. None of the three explanations holds up entirely. None falls apart completely.