Spain approves General Law on Audiovisual Communication, Ley 13/2022

Spain's Ley 13/2022, the General Law on Audiovisual Communication, is dated 7 July 2022. It replaced the 2010 audiovisual law and brought Spanish rules into line with the European Union's revised Audiovisual Media Services Directive of 2018, which Madrid was late in transposing.

The law extended obligations long applied to traditional television to on-demand services, including global streaming platforms. Catalogues had to reserve at least 30 per cent of their content for European works, and those works had to be given visibility, or "prominence", so that users could find them easily. Platforms were also required to contribute to funding European productions, with part of that money directed to independent producers and to works in Spain's co-official languages such as Catalan, Basque and Galician.

The law also updated rules on advertising, the protection of minors and the regulation of video-sharing platforms and influencers with large audiences. It mattered because it set the legal basis for later regulations specifying how prominence should work in practice, the issue now returning to the news.