El servicio público de radio en España: estatuto, estructura y sostenibilidad (the public radio service in Spain: statute, structure and sustainability)

Abstract

The structure of public radio in Spain is conditioned by the decentralizationthat characterizes the territorial and political organization of the Spanish State.This explains the existence of public stations owned by the state, as well as publicradios that belong to the Autonomous Communities and other stations promotedby the municipal corporations. Non-profit radio stations are also part of the publicradio service, financed by public institutions -such as some of the universityradios- and other radios promoted by civil society, in the third radio sector.The general legislative frame that regulates the structure and mission of thepublic radio in Spain, is the General Law of Audiovisual Communication of 2010. Nevertheless, each one of the Corporations (Chains) of radio, in its scopesof state or autonomic action, they are regulated through specific Laws / Statutes.State public radio is structured around four national channels, a territorialchain for Catalonia and an international station. In the autonomous area there aretwelve public radio corporations, belonging to twelve AutonomousCommunities: all of them have a single radio station, with the exception of theAutonomous Communities of Andalusia, Catalonia, Galicia and Euskadi thathave two or more chains. In relation to municipal radios, today there are only athousand stations with regular programming. Finally, if they are considered aspart of the non-profit public service, it is necessary to refer to the four thousandcommunity radio stations of the third radio sector, according to data from theWorld Association of Community Radio Broadcasters, and to the more thantwenty university public radio stations