It was launched on 28 October 1956 as the firstregular television service in Spain. It was the only one until 15 November 1966, when TVE launched asecond channel. As TVE held amonopoly on television broadcasting in the country, they were the only television channels until the first regional public television station was launched on 16 February 1983, whenEuskal Telebista started broadcasting in theBasque Country.Commercial television was launched on 25 January 1990, whenAntena 3 started broadcasting nationwide.
The channel was initially simply referred to as "Televisión Española" until the launch of its second channel in 1966. Since then it received other names, such as "Primera Cadena", "Primer Programa", "TVE-1", "TVE1" or "La Primera" until it adopted its current name "La 1" (La uno) in 2008. Its headquarters and main production center isPrado del Rey inPozuelo de Alarcón. Although almost all its programming is in Spanish and is the same for all of Spain, TVE has territorial centers in everyautonomous community and produces and broadcasts some local programming inregional variations in each of them, such aslocal news bulletins, in the correspondingco-official language.[1]
With analog service discontinued on 3 April 2010, it has only been available free-to-air through thedigital terrestrial television (DTT) ever since.La 1 and Teledeporte started their DDTHDTV resolution simulcasts on 31 December 2013, initially in720p and later in1080i.[3] With standard-definition feed discontinued on 11 February 2024, theUHDTV regular simulcast in4K resolution was launched nationwide.[4]
The channel was formerly available in northernPortugal through a network of illegal relays. These relays were used as an alternative to the existing RTP monopoly.[7]
Due to its status as apublic service and pioneertelevision channel in Spain,La 1 has been criticized on numerous occasions for aspects related to its programming. Within TVE's offer, the first channel has been characterized by a general offer that competes directly with a private television, relegating any alternative or public service space toLa 2.[8] This practice has been maintained even after the withdrawal of advertising in 2010.
The Association of Viewers and Radio Listeners (ATR) denounced in 2005 thatLa 1 had been the channel that had broken the Self-regulation Code on Television Content and Children the most times, a total of 169 times.[9] For its part, the management of the channel assured that many of the documented complaints had been based on "subjective criteria".[10][11][12][13]
Since 2014, there has been a debate on television schedules in Spain: for reasons of screen share, prime time has been delayed in recent years until 10:30 p.m. and many programs ended at dawn.[14] That same year, TVE signed an agreement with theMinistry of Health, Social Services and Equality for a "healthy use of television", which implied bringing forward the programming hours and ending them before 00:00.[15] However,La 1 has not fulfilled the commitment in its prime time and some programs such as theMasterChef Celebrity final have even ended at two in the morning.
One of the most controversial aspects is the work of information services. The appointment of the presidency of RTVE, responsible in turn for the rest of the departments, has historically depended on theCongress of Deputies by absolute majority, without the need for consensus.[16] For this reason, it is considered that the editorial line of the Telediario, the news program with the most audience in the entire group has been tilted in favor of the government in power, both during theFranco's dictatorship and in current democratic Spain.[17][18] There have been denunciations ofdisinformation in the governments ofAdolfo Suárez,[19][20]Felipe González,[21][22]José María Aznar,[23][24] in the latter case including a sentence from the National Court for "violation of trade union rights" in the news coverage of the 2002general strike.[25][26]
The government ofJosé Luis Rodríguez Zapatero changed the system for electing the presidency of RTVE in 2006, through a consensus of two-thirds of Congress, intending to grant more independence to the information services.[27] However, Mariano Rajoy's executive recovered the previous model in 2012 to resolve the power vacuum in the radio station. Since then, the TVE News Council (made up of the house's employees) has reported more than 70 cases of alleged malpractice on the newscast and on the weekly report, all of them related to current affairs:[28] the various cases ofcorruption affecting thePopular Party,[29] theBárcenas case, the focus of the pro-sovereignty process in Catalonia,[30][31][32][33] or the positioning of news in the rundown.[34][35] In addition, some journalists have denounced the gestation of a "parallel newsroom" to which the most sensitive information would be entrusted.[36]
In September 2017, theCortes Generales approved a new election system on RTVE that recovered the previous consensus model and established a public contest for the election of the presidency.[37] The new system was applied in February 2021, after three years of temporary administration of a sole provisional administrator.[38][39][40][41]
^The UHD upscaled broadcast of La 1's high definition signal includes the transmission of some native contents produced in UHD-4K, but lacks the regional opt-outs.
^The Canary Islands have a special version of the channel, labelledLa 1 Canarias, with extra opt-out programming and displaying all clocks on the screen, teletext or guide one hour behind to accommodate the islands' time zone.
^Catalonia has a special version of the channel, labelledLa 1 Catalunya, with extra opt-out programming in Catalan.
^Elvira, Álvaro P. Ruiz de (22 February 2017)."Telebasura punta".El País (in Spanish).ISSN1134-6582.Archived from the original on 1 February 2023. Retrieved1 February 2023.
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