Two of the three confirmed election debates that will take place before the momentous July 23 have taken place this week. Yesterday the parliamentary spokesmen of the PP, PSOE, Sumar, Vox, PNV, ERC and EH Bildu met in the RTVE studios and had an audience of 1.8 million people throughout the meeting.
Some 5.7 million voters watched the debate between the spokespersons of the parliamentary groups in Congress at some point during the night. However, only 1.8 million viewers watched the debate from start to finish. The meeting was moderated by Xabier Fortes and included the intervention of the spokespersons for the PSOE (Patxi López), PP (Cuca Gamarra), Vox (Iván Espinosa de los Monteros), Sumar (Aina Vidal), ERC (Gabriel Rufián) , PNV (Aitor Esteban) and EH Bildu (Oskar Matute).
The debate was broadcast on RTVE and was the most watched in prime time. Analyzing the audience, the numbers indicate that the majority of citizens who watched the entire program are over 64 years of age. The most watched moment was the golden minute at 11:00 p.m. with 2.3 million viewers. The general perception of the public seems to indicate that the seven representatives who participated in the meeting had a better debate than Sánchez and Feijóo in the face to face that took place this Monday.
Earlier this week, the face-to-face between the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, and the opposition leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, took place at Atresmedia. About 11.4 million people were watching the debate at some point. However, only 5.9 million viewers watched the debate for the 100 minutes it lasted. Most of them did it through Antena 3 and the rest through La Sexta, a large part of the audience was made up of people between 45 and 64 years of age.
Similarly, the most watched moment during the face-to-face was at 10:45 p.m. during the golden minute, the average audience rose to 6.4 million viewers. The debate between the PSOE candidate and the PP leader was moderated by Vicente Vallés and Ana Pastor. A large part of the public that saw the match pointed to Feijóo as the winner.
The first televised face to face took place in 1993 between José María Aznar and Felipe González. The debate with the largest average audience is the face to face between the socialist José Luis Zapatero and the popular Mariano Rajoy that took place on February 25, 2008. This meeting had an audience of almost 13 million viewers from start to finish.
