Atresmedia's strangest commercials

For weeks now, both Antena 3 and La Sexta have been abruptly inserting advertising breaks that disrupt television content. These are not the usual ad breaks, where presenters hand over to commercials. Nor are they interruptions with a notice of a divider separating two blocks of a program. Nor the classic transition between two different broadcasts. It is a twenty-second advertisement that violently intrudes upon whatever event is being broadcast at that moment, crushing its content. Last week, amidst the tense and sensationalist news about Noelia Castillo's euthanasia request during the broadcast of Y ahora Sonsoles and Más vale tarde, there were several interruptions of this nature. If a report was being aired, a panel discussion was taking place, or a live connection was being made, those twenty seconds of advertising trampled over the live feed. This Wednesday, on Espejo público, Lorena García was interviewing Iñaki Anasagasti in a live connection. She was asking him about the photographs of ETA prisoners that had appeared in a popular race and, to conclude the conversation, she took the opportunity to ask him what he thought of the lehendakari's request to bring the Guernica to the Guggenheim in Bilbao for a few months as a form of symbolic reparation. Just at that moment, a loud twenty-second advertisement suddenly appeared, drowning out his words. When the violent and annoying advertising cut ended, Anasagasti was already finishing his sentence. We were left without his response. These are advertising inserts that are made outside the program's broadcast signal. They inject them directly into DTT. If you retrieve the broadcast on Atresmedia's digital platform or through Movistar+'s grid, that advertising cut does not appear. It is only for viewers watching DTT. Obviously, these inserts do not save you from the usual advertising. The formula could violate the general audiovisual communication law of 2022 because it does not respect the program's integrity – advertising cannot cut off responses, sentences, scenes, or any narrative continuity–. Furthermore, this practice could be used as a form of veiled censorship, disrupting television moments at convenience. The method is part of an increasingly widespread trend of disregard for viewers. It is a way of transforming the model: the audience ceases to be the recipient of the content and becomes a mere reception device for advertising impacts. The television experience is increasingly fragmented and poorly curated. Given the ease with which certain commercial practices are adopted, the method could end up invading television grids. From all for the audience to all for the money.