Alejandro Echevarría, honorary president of Mediaset España and key figure for private television in Spain, dies

Alejandro Echevarría, president of Mediaset Spain from 1996 to 2022 and defender of free-to-air commercial television through UTECA, has died at 81 years of age.

Mediaset Spain, through their social channels, have shared the sad news, emphasizing the role of Echevarria as “key figure in the history of the media and the Spanish audiovisual sector.” Numerous professionals and associations such as UTECA, of which he was a part since its foundation and presided over two periods (2006-2011 and 2016-2018), have joined in the condolences and have highlighted his contribution “to the social and institutional recognition of the free-to-air commercial television model in Spain".

Natural from BilbaoSince his birth in 1942 he was closely linked to the world of the press since his grandfather, Manuel Echevarría Torres, founded and directed El Noticiero Bilbaíno. It was Alejandro Echevarría, his father, who incorporated the newspaper into El Correo Español, becoming its director in 1951. After studying business management and embarking on a professional career away from the media, in 1980 Alejandro Echevarría Jr. was appointed CEO of The mail, whose group became a shareholder in Gestevisión-Telecinco, a company of which he was appointed director. This arrival into the exciting world of private television in the 1990s exemplified his gift for identifying opportunities. For example, what Spanish audiovisual is today: a sector abundant with talent, perspectives and opportunities that has acquired enormous cruising speed and has become one of the main information and leisure resources of any developed society.

On May 15, 1996, Echevarría was appointed president of Telecinco, a professional stage that coincides in time with the most important development in the history of private television in Spain. In this period, the president of Mediaset Spain He has been part of the team that has worked to achieve leadership of a commercial television model, with general and free-to-air content.

After the merger of Telecinco with Cuatro In 2010, Alejandro Echevarría became president of Mediaset Spain, the company that currently manages free-to-air television channels (Telecinco, Cuatro, FDF, Divinity, Energy, Boing and BeMad), a digital platform with free content (Mitele) and a version of premium paid content (Mitele Plus), as well as as web pages, both linked to Mediaset España channels and specialized in different targets and themes (Telecinco.es, cuatro.com, divinity.es...); an advertising marketer (Publiespaña) that is the leader in advertising market share; an audiovisual news agency (Atlas) that sells nationally and internationally; a cinematographic subsidiary (Telecinco Cinema) that has created some of the most viewed films in Spanish cinema, and participation in a series of owned production companies that generate both their own content and for third parties and that is marketed by the distributor Mediterráneo Mediaset España Group, taking them further of our borders.

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