Home-grown fiction programmes in the late-Franco period and the first transition: Shaping a democratic culture (1970–1976)

Abstract

This work reviews the role of Spanish-produced fiction in the shaping of a democratic culture in Spain. To this end, it studies in-depth a selection of domestic fiction programmes aired in the years leading up to the death of the dictator General Franco and the outset of the transition to democracy (1970–1976). Spanish television professionals during this period used fictional accounts to initiate themselves in a type of production that had scarcely had a presence in its rudimentary audio-visual market. But they also used fiction to bypass censorship and broadcast messages aimed at promoting a democratic culture. This research analyses the content and formal characteristics of 11 fiction series produced by Televisión Española that, besides being hugely popular, stood out for the ideological richness of their messages. These programmes proved to be important cultural pieces in laying the groundwork for the transition to democracy by acting as channels to instil values of freedom, consumption or gender equality and criticism of the Franco regime. This analysis concludes by showing how in 1976, the fledgling stages of the transition saw the advent of formally democratic programming that, however, had been fuelled, among others, by contents aired in previous years.