The society in Spain is not only divided by autonomous communities; the country is also split into private and public areas. The most commonly known area where this private and public issue pops up is in the educational area; private and public schools. Other areas are: transport (toll ways) and television.

Sogecable is a company that is listed on the Ibex35, the Madrid stock exchange. And this company is the owner of Digital +, the private television channel. Cuatro is a additional channel that they also own and this channel recently got introduced as a private channel. Before that time it was one of the channel in the private Digital+ package.

Now we have got football, the world cup. And,

... Furthermore, on March 28th 2006, Sogecable reached an agreement for the exclusive distribution in DIGITAL+ of half of the matches of the forthcoming Football World Cup to be held in Germany since June 9th 2006. Source: (http://www.sogecable.com/Media/pdfs/2006/results_1quarter2006.pdf)

The other channel that was able to pay this licence was LaSexta, but this company obviously received only a part of the deal; the are able to broadcast all games, but many of them in a deferred way. Cuatro (recently mentioned as part of Digital+) is able to broadcast the games of general interest; this is when Spain is on.

Argentina, for example, as many of you know a country with a more than reasonable football league, is placed on the deferred space ... The question is who will watch - this is the twenty-first century - a game of which the outcome is already known?

Thus: ... As a result of this agreement and the inclusion in the DIGITAL+ proposal of laSexta, holder of the remaining World Cup rights including those classified as being of general interest in accordance with Spanish legislation, DIGITAL+ subscribers will be the only viewers in Spain able to enjoy the whole of the Football World Cup live.

And competitive as they are, Lasexta tries to take some revenge; observe their advertisements where they hit on Cuatro with why would you watch only FOUR (Cuatro in Spanish) games is you can watch them all. What they do not tell you is that this all is half truth, namely all, but not live.

What keeps my puzzled is why Spanish citizens do not seem to care about this. According to a web survey with a limited depth of only 360 response, less than 10% of the viewers watch the games through Canal+ (Digital+), 42% through Lasexta and 34% through Cuatro. (http://todosobremitele.blogcindario.com). This probably means that in Spain they are not really bothered with the World Cup unless Spain itself is on stage. General interest is Spain.

2006 Hans Bool