| Summary: | The approval of the Law of the Spanish Parliament on general audiovisual communication (Ley 7/2010) is a really important milestone in the media legislative framework. This law represents the culmination of a political and legislative effort, which has been deployed for decades, designed to finally give Spain a basic standard in terms of regulation of audiovisual communication services. On the other hand, for the first time a legal instrument will have the capacity to cover the sector of audiovisual communication on a horizontal basis, with a systematic structure, and respecting the principle of technological neutrality and the existing level of technological development. Catalonia had already been done this job and approved the Law 22/2005 of 29 December, on audiovisual communication in Catalonia with the aim of becoming a standard set of systematic regulations on audiovisual communications in Catalonia. It is therefore particularly interesting to analyse some of the possible differences and imbalances between the basic law just enacted at Central Government level and the pre-existing Catalan legislative framework in this sector. Of course, in some cases it should be to considered, ultimately, to what extent the Spanish law does respect the constitutional rules regarding the distribution of competences, or moves within an overly extensive interpretation of the notion of “basic legislation”.
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