Commitment to society

We wish to put what Sogecable most values, our ability to communicate and our team of professionals at society's disposal, with its worries and needs.

We think that the best way of supporting and committing ourselves is by revealing our experience, resources and skills in spreading and boosting causes and projects that worry our current society. Developing this approach has led us to have a policy of sponsorship and spreading of solidary causes (social, environmental and cultural ones) that take precedence over the interest and needs of the latter versus screen share criteria or profitability for the advertisers.

We have the other great central theme of social action within the company itself, thanks to the  initiative and will of the workers who decide to boost solidary causes. We offer all of the latter advantages and support, joining them in their efforts so as to help them reach the projects' goals.

Sponsorship and spreding of solidary causes. We spread our solidary tasks out to the our channels' contents and broadcast, carrying out an intense sensibilising activity in social and environmental issues, which has become an identity brand in our Group.

In the last few years, Cuatro has given away broadcast spaces to solidary campaigns boosted by different social organisations, such as Aísleme (Isolate Me), Asociación Ayudemos a un Niño (Let's Help a Child Association), Asociación Española de Esclerosis Múltiple (Multiple Sclerosis Spanish Association), Fundación Alas (Alas Foundation), Fundación Ayuda Contra la Drogadicción (Help Against Drug Addiction Foundations), Fundación Gran Teatro del Liceo, Fundación Más Vida (More Life Foundation), Fundación Theodora, Infancia Sin Fronteras (Borderless Childhood), Manos Unidas (Hands United) or Save the Children.

Likewise, Cuatro considerably extended its commitment with the social worries, offering programmes with evident humanitary scopes, thus helping in becoming more aware of inequality and poverty situations that persons of our society must live with.

Among these programmes, we may find Callejeros (Street People), where every week, a window to reality opens up, showing us the problems different groups of people and districts of our country must undergo.

The environmental issues played an important role on our television channels' schedules, where, from different standpoints, problems derived from the global over-heating and the consequences of the climatic changes were covered, developing initiatives for improving the spanish citizens' and families' behaviour before this worldwide problema.

Canal+, Sogecable's Premium channel, also often covers the environmental problem in its programmes and documentaries.

Canal+ usually dedicated a large environmental offer addressed at the Earth's extraordinary diversity and the dangers it faces. Great productions that warn about the the risks in the climatic changes and offer preventive measures for avoiding the over-heating of the Planet, such as BBC Planet Earth.

Other Digital+ documentary channels, such as Odisea, National Geographic or Discovery Channel, have joined the environmental content initiative.

On the other hand, our television channels have traditionally bet on spaces dedicated to training in social values, by means of programmes with evident educational content, especially addressed at our society's youngest share.

Support to education, training and cultura. In Sogecable we have also unmistakably bet on three of the most outstanding cultural and educational demonstrations of our country: information, the movies and sports.

Insofar as information to the citizens is concerned, since its beginnings, Sogecable has emphasized its interest and the significance it grants plural and independent information as a means of social communication to society, regardless of any other commercial order consideration.

Thus, the company set up its first News Services for Canal+ in 1990 as an essential public service complement to a pay TV, whose attractive feature for the subscribers was essentially focused on other types of contents.

Later, in 1999, it launched the 24 hours news channel CNN+, produced by an Independent Company of Television News (CINTV), a company that Sogecable owned 50% of its shares and Turner (the owner of Internation CNN). This joint venture a pioneer in Europe, required an investment of 16 million Euros, which added to the one made by Sogecable in 2005 for the release of  the News' Services of Cuatro, its open TV channel. Both writing departments currently work together and represent one of the most important audiovisual news' production centres in Spain.

Insofar as the movie industry is concerned, it is worthy to mention the tasks carried out by our Sogecine production company, which has shot around one hundred or so Spanish movies in the last 16 years. Sogecine regularly releases its movies in markets as demanding as the American, Japanese or French ones, and participates in the main movie contests and festivals of the world.

On its own account, Sogepaq, one of Sogecable's movie sector companies dedicated to distribution, commercialises more than 270 Spanish movies abroad, among which are all of those that are produced by Sogecine.

Moreover, Sogecable edits and broadcasts, on Digital+, the Spanish Dmovies, that is entirely dedicated to the broadcast of national productions, and releases of the most recent movies in our movie industry may be found on Canal+.

However, Sogecable's support to the seventh art is not only limited to the movies, but it also reaches out to the documentary and short films' industry.

We have also signed an important collaboration agreement with Barcelona's Pompeu Fabra University, by means of which we will be sponsoring the Masters in Creation Documentaries, in order to dynamize the production of this audiovisual genre in our country.

Insofar as Sogecable's other great bet is concerned, that is, sports, it is worthy to mention the enormous economic and professional effort made by the company in favour of our country's soccer since 1990, when Canal+ began to broadcast First Division matches and opened a new earnings' window for the clubs - the pay TV soccer one - which has been mainly responsable for the growth undergone by the king sports in our country since.

In support for sports and the smaller ones, we have been sponsoring the 7 Soccer Championship since 1992, which gathers together the young national and international soccer promises.

With regard to the institutional collaboration, it is worthy to mention the support and sponsorship of important cultural events with important roots in our country, such as the Liceo of Barcelona, the Movie Festival of Malaga, the Television Academy, the El Pais Journalism School Foundation in collaboration with the Autonomous Universtiy or the Press Association of Madrid.

Likewise, Sogecable is a member of the most important business associations of the audiovisual world in our country, among which the Associated Commercial Television Union (UTECA) stands out, and of which it belongs to its Board of Directors. Likewise, Sogecable is a member of the Association of European Commercial Televisions (ACT).

Social Projects in Sogecable

The Proyecto Cero 25, an intitiative run by our employees and which consists of the voluntary 0.25% donation of their payroll for the financing of development and environmental cooperation projects stands out among the social campaigns we are developing. In the last several years, our company has been collaborating with this solidary action by matching the donations made by our employees.

Likewise, we celebrated the Solidary Day yearly, during which our employees willingly donate a day's worth of their wages for the financing of social programmes.

We also carry out campaigns for the recycling of our company's cell phones, by means of which we gather together our employees' obsolete terminals for their subsequent recycling by the DAMA company, which is in charge of depositing the reusable material's amount into the Cero25 project's budget.

During this last year, we have signed collaboration agreements with diverse Foundations and NGOs for financing programmes and campaigns of attention to the elderly population and hydro-sanitary projects in countries under development. Among the latter, we may find the Integral Attention VIH/AIDS in Busia (Kenia) of Doctors Without Frontiers, the Hydro-sanitary Programme of the Engineers Without Frontiers in the district of Same (Tanzania), the Arts' Workshop in Sierra Leona, the Computer Science School of Udami in Calcutta of the Cooperating World, the construction of a sewage system in the Aldea (small village) of San Miguel (El Salvador), as well as the financing of assistance and accompaniment activities for the Elderly Population. 

Defense and promotion of the Human Rights

We have an active policy of respect towards the rights and freedom of all the people from all over the regions in which we, either directly or indirectly intervene, accepting these issues as circumstancial obligations to the performance of our profession.

We give special emphasis to the freedom of expression and on giving guarantees for the fulfilment of the ethical codes for the protection of the rights of the people, the minorities and the children in all of our productions and broadcasts.

We spread these obligations out to all of our chains of providers, assessing their commitments and requesting they be fulfilled. So far, we have not yet offered our employees any training activities focused on Human Rights, but we expect to include these subjects in our next Annual Training Plan.

In the last years, this policy has thus enabled us to assure that we have not received any sanctions or fines with regard to any incompliance to international laws or regulations related to either corruption, monopolisation practices, marketing, discrimination, disloyal competence, child or human rights' explotation.