The Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia (CNMC) has once again opened proceedings against RTVE for irregular advertising, while the public broadcaster claims no rules have been broken.
For the second time in less than a month, the Spanish competition authority is looking into RTVE’s advertising strategy - the public corporation is only allowed to air ads under certain conditions, such as the sponsorship of sports events.According to the CNMC, such adverts must be shorter than ten seconds, air immediately after or before the show and mustn’t encourage any commercial response. It claims that almost all the material it investigated, which was broadcast by La 1, La2, Clan TV, 24H and Teledeporte in December 2017 and January 2018, didn’t comply with these conditions.
RTVE has stated that the adverts are part of its agreement with the Spanish Olympic committee and the public funding plan for athletes.
“Besides, the video pieces cited by the CNMC didn’t drive any kind of revenue for the corporation, and sponsorship money is entirely allocated to support Spain’s Olympic sports,” explained RTVE.
