Grupo Prisa

Overview

Grupo Prisa (Promotora de Informaciones SA) is Spain's largest media conglomerate, best known for El País (that nation's leading paper) but also encompassing over 400 radio stations in Spain and Latin America, along with magazine and book publishing, rights management, television broadcasting/production and music recording interests.

The group

The Polanco family-controlled Grupo Prisa operates in Spain and several Spanish-speaking Latin American states but as yet has not made substantial inroads into the US. In Spain it ranks as number one in newspapers, book publishing, music and radio. It owns outright or has a stake in six book publishers, eight radio networks, television channels, film/video production companies and cinema chains, music and audiovisual companies, a press distributor and a direct marketing firm.

An indication of the holdings is here.

In Spain El País (circulation 445,500 - over 10% of total circulation) is the country's largest paper. SER, Prisa's Spanish radio arm, is the dominant chain with 420 stations. Prisa also has 19% of Sogecable, Spain's only paid subscription digital service (several channels, including rights to popular soccer teams such as Real Madrid), with another 19% held by the ailing Canal + (formerly part of the Vivendi Universal conglomerate. It has substantial printing, book and magazine publishing interests (in competition with Recoletos, formerly controlled by Pearson), including the Spanish edition of Rolling Stone, an economic periodical Cinco Dias and film magazine Cinemania. Its Grupo Santillana is the dominant textbook and general publisher.

Offshore it has newspaper, radio and magazine interests in Bolivia. Prisa controls 87% of Grupo Latino de Radio (300 stations in Panama, Chile, Colombia and Costa Rica). In Mexico it has 50% of Radiopolis, the radio arm of dominant broadcaster Grupo Televisa under the control of the Azcárraga family. In Brazil and Venezuela its holdings include publisher Editora Moderna and Santillana.

In the US it owns an AM radio station in Miami, has a Spanish-language film & television production partnership with Televisa and Univision and is active in book publishing.

History

Prisa's history is somewhat different to that of most competitors. The group's origins date from the 1960s, when higher standards of living and tentative relaxation of the Franco regime's restrictions fuelled the growth of the Polanco family's Santillana publishing house. Santillana began to establish a presence outside Spain, initially through exports and then through local operations in Latin America (eg Argentina in 1963, Chile in 1968).

In the early 1970s the family established the centrist El País, despite opposition from the Generalissimo, and subsequently built Grupo Prisa to accommodate expanding interests in radio, publishing and book distribution. Growth of Prisa's South and Central American book publishing interests was followed by expansion into book retailing and television in Spain.

At the end of the millennium Prisa listed on the Madrid stock exchange, reflecting acquisition of significant radio broadcasting and film/video production interests in the Americas in conjunction with reduction of its printing operations in Spain. It appears to have been interested in acquiring a major presence in US Spanish-language broadcasting but, perhaps wisely, has not been prepared to pay the premiums involved in the growth of Univision and Telemundo.

In March 2005 the Le Monde board announced a recapitalization agreement in which Spanish publisher Grupo PRISA and French defense and media group Lagardere SA would contribute €25 million each to a capital increase alongside other potential new investors.

Studies

There is no major English-language study of the Polancos or Grupo Prisa.

Insights are offered by Elizabeth Fox's Latin American Broadcasting: From Tango to Soap Opera (Luton: Uni of Luton Press 1997), Andrew Paxman & Alex Saragoza's 'Globalization & Latin Media Powers: The Case of Mexico's Televisa' in Continental Order? Integrating North America for Cybercapitalism (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield 2001) edited by Vincent Mosco & Dan Schiller and Latin Politics, Global Media (Austin: Uni of Texas Press 2002) co-edited by Fox & Silvio Waisbord. There is a similar perspective in Political Clientalism & the Media: Southern Europe & Latin America in Comparative Perspective (PDF) by Daniel Hallin & Stylianos Papathanassopoulos.