Private TV airs Spanish Championships

By Antonio J. Salmerón

Spanish public national television, TVE, was not interested in airing the national championships that take place this weekend in Cuenca, so the Spanish Federation has reached an agreement with the Spanish private TDT television channel La Sexta. The national cycling event can be watched live on Sunday, June 30.

The only difficulty is that not many Spanish people have a TDT decoder at home or have difficulties receiving the digital TV signal, because the TDT (Terrestre Digital Television) is still being implementing in Spain. In fact, La Sexta had to negotiate the shared emission of the last Football World Championships with private TV channel Cuatro.

The elite amateur Spanish championships, which will take place on August 1 and 12 in Fortuna (Murcia), will be broadcast on the local public TV channel 7 Región de Murcia, which also broadcast the Vuelta a Murcia in March.

The Spanish Comisión Permanente del Consejo de Emisiones y Retransmisiones Deportivas, which is headed by Jaime Lissavetzky, State Sport Secretary (Secretario de Estado para el Deporte) has only considered the Vuelta a España and the World Championships in Germany to be of general interest. TVE interests have been decreasing since Unipublic (the Vuelta's organiser) was bought by the private broadcasting group Antena 3.

Since Paris-Nice in March, TVE has not transmitted any other stage race, while the leader in the cycling events on TV ranking is the local public Basque TV channel ETB.