Spain’s government has finally approved the law allowing the private broadcasters to merge, provided such a move would not see more than a 27% share of the market between the two parties.

There must also still be a minimum of three private TV national channels with different editorial content.

The text will be taken next to the Senate without passing through the Congress.

But two important aspects were not taken into account in the text: the competitiveness of the autonomous regions in the audiovisual field and the creation of an office to defend the audiovisual consumer.

The first was a PP party proposal to privatize the public TV channels of the autonomous regions. That did not pass and neither did the creation of an Audiovisual Council because the government considers the Telecommunications Market Comission (CMT)’s role in this market “is enough”.

via Approved: the merger of Spain’s broadcasters – Rapid TV News.