The coming of television in Spain

THE INTRODUCTION OF TELEVISION IN SPAIN

Carlota Tena.

 

The Worldwide prehistory of television goes from the end of the 19th Century till 1935. The television started being a laboratory invention and it became a free access media. The fist manufactures of television for domestic-familiar use took place in the United Kingdom in 1937 and in the United States in 1939. While this was happening around the world, in Spain, radios and magazines discussed about the characteristics of the new media that had not yet arrived to the Spanish territory. Even the newspapers were full of news about the impact that television was already having in other countries. In 1956 Barcelona and Madrid became the first Spanish cities with television but the citizens will need around 10 years to consider TV as a leisure option. The transmission was in black and white till it evolved to the colour version. The Olympic Games of Munich (1972) was the first colour transmission in Spain. Besides the historical facts and landmarks we value the personal experience of the people that lived this change. We have the testimony of Lola, a Salesian Sister and Don Bosco University teacher that lived the introduction of the television in Spain when she was a child. We also had the chance to interview Jose María, an old man that was around 3o years old when the fist television arrived to his little village.

Before the arrival of TV, life was very different. People knew about the news by reading the newspaper or by listening to the radio. The worldwide information arrived days or even weeks after it had occurred so people were less aware of what happened abroad. With the introduction of television people would have much easier access to information. Information that would be more unified but that would be mostly controlled by the state. So as almost everyone saw TV, most citizens opinions would be based on the information shown on it. It would become an important manipulation tool. Lola remembers not only listening to the news on the radio but entertaining with the radio soap operas. “We used to listen to the soap opera Ana Rosa and when it finished we felt so anxious for the next day to come to be able to discover how the story was going to continue” Lola recalled. Jose María told us about the hit of the soap opera La Doctora Francis, “Everyone in the village listened to this program and when I arrived to the city I could observe that many women cleaners were listening to it all day”. The arrival of television changed the way of spending time. People used to spend more time on the street. “When we were kids we used to play outside but with TV we spent every Thursday afternoon watching the children’s program. We were all looking forward to it, it was so much fun! Lola explained us cheerfully. Instead of going to the cinema they started watching movies at home.

The first experiences with television marked a generation. Lola did not have TV at home at the beginning. She told us that she used to go to an oncologist hospital near her house to watch it. “When we could have our own TV, everyone would come along to our house, it was a great event”. Jose María points out that the first places to have television were the rich family houses of the city but on the village people would meet on the pubs to watch the news. Another thing that was quite different from today was the TV’s programming. It had two channels and around lunch time there was “Carta de Ajuste”, at 15.00 the news and it would finish at midnight. “When I entered to the nunnery, my colleagues and I would watch a film every night. There were no programs after 00.00” reported Lola about her youth. Jose María told us a curiosity about the films, “When they weren’t recommended for kids under 14 years old they would sign it with one rhombus at the beginning of the transmission and when they were not recommended for young people under 18 years old they would show two rhombuses. Both of our interviewers stand out the importance of the transmission of the football matches; “you can’t imagine how spectacular it was to see it in the little screen and hear those great speakers reporting the match in such an exciting way!” described Jose María. But this wasn’t the end of the excitement: the colour version TV was about to arrive. Lola remembers that her sister and brother-in-law brought the first colour television from Germany. “When they brought it, Spain had not yet installed the colour system so the images would actually look quite bluish”. Jose María’s memory is about the first thing he watched in colour; “I hanged out with my brothers and some friends and we watched the coronation of the Spanish king, Juan Carlos I, in 1975”.

To conclude we would like to highlight the power of TV from Jose Maria’s point of view: “The television has an important role on the evolution of the Spanish language talked on the Spanish territory. When I was younger I used to study and live in Andalucía and when I arrived I could not understand what they were saying. The TV has unified the language what makes it easier to communicate among the same country”. In addition to this, the introduction of the television in Spain was big moment. Leisure time changed, the access to information became easier, new programs appeared… A new model of life started to be developed.