Tertulias: Talking heads on Spain's airwaves

Television programming in Spain has undergone a transformation over the past decade - changes driven partly by economics and partly by politics. Ever since the banking crisis of 2008, the country has been in a semi-constant state of political upheaval. A series of corruption scandals, inconclusive general elections and, more recently, Catalonia's run at independence have kept Spaniards glued to their televisions and pundits talking 24/7. That has given rise to a wave of political talk shows that the Spanish call tertulias. These programmes meet two important criteria, they provide political flashpoints that audiences seem to like and they're cheap to produce.