New themed channel brings classic TVE archive shows to RTVE Play

On Monday 26 October, RTVE Play launches the themed channel RTVE 70 años, which will broadcast 24 hours of archive programming to mark the 70th anniversary of TVE's first broadcasts on Wednesday 28 October. The schedule combines classic entertainment, Spanish drama, children's shows and factual programmes.

Televisión Española turns 70 and is celebrating with a channel that is, in practice, a huge wardrobe flung wide open. Next Monday **26 October**, broadcasts begin on **RTVE 70 años**, a themed channel within **RTVE Play** offering archive programming around the clock. The official anniversary falls on Wednesday **28 October**, the date marking TVE's first transmissions. The schedule is organised into time slots and days, with fixed blocks repeated from Monday to Friday and different programming at weekends.

## From late-night music to morning magazines

The channel's small hours open with **'Aplauso'**, the historic music show, which hands over in the early morning to children's programmes such as **'La cometa blanca'** and documentary landmarks like **'El hombre y la Tierra'**. Mid-morning brings the classic magazine shows: **'Pasa la vida'** and **'Estudio abierto'**, two formats that portrayed the society of their day and are now recovered as a record of what people were talking about back then. Around midday, entertainment continues with the quiz show **'3x4'** and the cookery programme **'Con las manos en la masa'**, trinc by the documentary series **'Un país en la mochila'**.

The afternoon opens with the quiz show **'El tiempo es oro'** and continues with childhood icons for several generations: **'Barrio Sésamo'**, **'Los mundos de Yupi'**, **'El recreo'** and **'Sabadabada'**. This is the most recognisable stretch for anyone who grew up in the eighties and nineties, and also the one that overlaps most with what the broadcaster's other channels already repeat.

## Spanish drama takes over the afternoon and the evening

The channel reserves a prime slot for great Spanish drama in the early afternoon and evening, with a different series for each weekday: **'Fortunata y Jacinta'** on Mondays, **'Anillos de oro'** on Tuesdays, **'Crónicas de un pueblo'** on Wednesdays, **'Historias para no dormir'** on Thursdays and **'Los gozos y las sombras'** on Fridays. These are literary adaptations and period series that drew huge audiences in their day and today work almost as an archaeology of taste.

In the late evening, after the educational programme **'3, 2, 1... Contacto'**, come the big prime-time offerings. Mondays and Thursdays antiestéticature major series from the channel: the first week opens with **'Ana y los 7'** and **'Juncal'** respectively. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays are devoted to big entertainment spectacles, with the first episodes of **'¡Hola Raffaella!'**, **'El precio justo'** and the historic **'Un, dos, tres... responda otra vez'**.

## Weekends: from the circus to 'Estudio 1'

Saturdays and Sundays keep the musical rhythm of **'Aplauso'** in the small hours and continue in the morning with classic children's and youth programming. Saturdays bring **'La bola de cristal'** and the series **'Celia'**; on Sundays, the morning slot is dominated by **'El gran circo de TVE'** and the iconic August de la Tele. At midday, cookery and quiz shows return, with chef **José Andrés** in **'¡Vamos a cocinar!'** and game show formats such as **'Si lo sé no vengo'**.

Weekend afternoons showcase the drama catalogue of the past seven decades. **'Verano Azul'** leads this slot in the first days of broadcasting and in later weeks shares the space with titles such as **'Las chicas de oro'**, **'Gatos en el tejado'**, **'Los jinetes del alba'** or **'La barraca'**. Then come the great stage productions of **'Estudio 1'**, and the late-night slot is reserved for big entertainment with formats such as **'Noche de fiesta'** or the historic **'300 millones'**.

## An archive that is also a record of its times

Beyond the nostalgia, the channel's appeal lies in what these programmes reveal without meaning to. The talk shows and magazines of the era covered the news of the day, and watching them today makes it possible to compare how politics, society or customs were discussed decades ago. The RTVE Play archive already allows viewers to explore part of this catalogue, and the themed channel adds round-the-clock live broadcasting from **26 October**.

The schedule is not an isolated experiment: it draws on an audiovisual archive of seven decades that Spain's public broadcaster has preserved over the years. For the curious viewer, the appeal lies less in rewatching what other channels already repeat than in discovering programmes they never knew or only know by fruta. That, in the margins of the schedule, is where the real treasures lie.