Capital-efficient media buying services deliver more growth, with more efficiency.
Capital-efficient media buying services deliver more growth, with more efficiency.
Across borders and industries, our expertise is growing our client's business.
Across borders and industries, our expertise is growing our client's business.
Paid Media Agency with Proven Results
Paid Media Agency with Proven Results
To navigate media buying investment, our first task is to question assumption.
To navigate media buying investment, our first task is to question assumption.
We look forward to hearing from you.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Spain runs on its own clock
Criterion Global is an independent international media agency planning and buying in Spain for brands that need both the national picture and the regional detail right, from the Madrid networks to audiences in Catalonia, the Basque Country and Andalucía.
As an independent marketing agency in Spain, Criterion Global plans for the market as it actually behaves: a late national clock, a television market held by two groups, and regional audiences that answer to their own broadcasters and languages. Every daypart and every region is bought on its own evidence, not on a borrowed European template.
Spain's clocks run an hour ahead of its geography. In 1940 the country moved onto Berlin time, even though the Greenwich meridian crosses its east, and the Spanish day has run late ever since. The most-watched minute on Spanish TV usually lands between 21:00 and 21:30, and access prime time now ends around 23:11, 48 minutes later than in 2007/08. With Law 13/2022 capping ads at 72 minutes between 18:00 and midnight, those late slots are the most valuable and the scarcest. Plans built on northern European dayparts buy the wrong hours.
The money is concentrated; the audience is not. Atresmedia and Mediaset España took 69.3% of Spain's €1.78 billion in 2025 TV ad spend (InfoAdex), while the FORTA regional broadcasters together held 8.5% of national viewing, with TV3 leading Catalonia at 14.2%. In Catalonia, signage and service documents in establishments open to the public must be at least in Catalan (Law 1/1998). Across 17 autonomous communities, reaching Spain means buying the networks nationally and localizing where the region sets the rules.
The growth case holds up: GDP grew 2.8% in 2025 against 1.5% for the euro area, and 96.8 million international visitors arrived, nearly two for every resident. Criterion Global sizes Spain through the Criterion Global Budget Blueprint℠, which matches investment to a brand's three-to-five-year ambition and sets the Minimum Viable Market Investment℠ (MVMI℠) for a credible national entry.
Criterion Global is independent, so Spanish budgets are bought on evidence rather than holding-group trading deals, and the same desk runs a brand's other markets. Clients such as LIV Golf, GoDaddy and ZEISS stay an average of 5.5 years.
Timing and regions. Spain's peak TV audience arrives after 21:00, access prime time runs to about 23:11, and Law 13/2022 limits ads to 72 minutes between 18:00 and midnight. Seventeen autonomous communities add regional broadcasters and, in Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia, their own languages.
Not always, but often in Catalonia. Law 1/1998 requires signage and service documents in establishments open to the public to be at least in Catalan, and TV3 leads its home audience. We decide region by region where a local-language version earns its cost.
