Spain's television services will be changing from September when national public broadcaster RTVE will stop all kinds of advertising from its channels. Last Friday, May 8, the Spanish government presented the law defining RTVE’s new business model based on content quality and public service.

To compensate for the lack of advertisements, RTVE will charge Spain’s telecommunications companies 0.9% of their revenues, with the remainder coming from state money and from another new tax – 3% of national private broadcasters' revenues.

Many of the private companies are most unhappy, arguing they have nothing to do with the audiovisual business so should not contribute to financing the state's broadcaster at all.

In Spanish TV Merger News, Sogecable's Cuatro and Mediapro's laSexta seemingly are having "serious" talks for a future merger according to reports. This would mean that the resulting merged broadcaster would have the best soccer rights in Spain, and give it a huge advantage in the coming Pay TDT service, and would basically monopolize this sport on television.