Spanish television runs on a two-tier system that shapes everything else. There's the public broadcaster, funded by licence-style contributions and known for sober news bulletins and cultural programming, and there are the big commercial generalist networks that fight over the same mass audience with soap operas, quiz shows and imported US sitcoms. What surprises foreign viewers is the dubbing culture. Almost everything foreign arrives in Castilian Spanish, and the voice actors are celebrities in their own right. Only a niche audience watches subtitled versions. Series are the backbone of primetime, especially the long-running daily soap operas that fill the afternoon and the homegrown thrillers that sell abroad. Late-night talk shows start absurdly late and run past 1am, a schedule quirk that baffles northern European visitors. Regional broadcasting is unusually strong. Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia all have their own public channels operating entirely in Catalan, Basque and Galician, with their own newsrooms and comedy scenes. News reading is formal and fast, with a heavy emphasis on politics and crime. Sports coverage is the real ratings monster, but domestic league football and international tournaments move between pay and free windows depending on the rights cycle of the moment. The result is a market that feels Mediterranean in its rhythms but genuinely multilingual in a way few of its neighbours match.