Vocento or the limits of regional press

Abstract

The story of Vocento is that of a communication group that managed to consolidate the largest regional journalistic project in Spain. With the treasury accumulated in the boom years and some other resources was able to acquire ABC Journal; and also it carried out an ambitious multimedia expansion, with the creation of a radio station (Punto Radio) and television projects: Telecinco, local channels and multiplex in the DTT. This strategy prompted a diversification of its activities and that it was able to compete with the rest of great media conglomerates: Prisa, Telefónica and Planeta. Although the final result was unequal in not meeting expectations in audiovisual projects and having excessive losses in the newspaper ABC. Our objective in this article is twofold: to demonstrate the restrictions of the processes of horizontal integration in the journalistic sector, as well as to analyze the mistakes made by Vocento in its multimedia diversification strategy.