TRECE, the television channel of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, closed 2025 with another 2.9 million euros in losses and has already accumulated around 118 million euros in the red since its creation in 2010. Sixteen years after its launch, the bishops’ television project continues to fall short of profitability and still requires financial support from its shareholder to sustain its operations.
The figures come from the latest accounts filed with the Commercial Registry, according to El Confidencial. The accounts also reveal that Ábside Media —the media group of the Spanish Episcopal Conference that includes TRECE and COPE— maintains a 40 million euro credit line with the channel, maturing in December 2028. TRECE has already drawn down 34.7 million, five million more than a year earlier.
Fewer losses, but also fewer revenues
The negative result of 2.9 million recorded in 2025 represents a 7.5% reduction compared to the previous year. The trend marks a considerable improvement over the much larger deficits recorded during the channel’s early years, when it lost more than ten million euros in a single fiscal year.
However, the reduction in red ink has not been accompanied by an increase in revenues. Turnover fell from 12.59 million euros in 2024 to 12.38 million in the latest year.
Advertising remains TRECE’s main source of income, with 11.71 million euros. Of that amount, 7.9 million came from conventional advertisers and another 2.5 million from teleshopping.
The overall state of the television market also does not favor smaller channels. Advertising investment in traditional television fell 4.4% in 2025, to 1,784 million euros, while advertisers and viewers continue to shift toward digital platforms and formats.
The first half of 2026 has shown some improvement, with a 2.1% increase in television advertising investment. The market volume, however, remains far from pre-pandemic levels and, especially, from the years before the 2008 financial crisis.
Ábside maintains a 40 million euro credit line
The most significant figure in the new accounts again lies in the shareholder’s financial backing. Ábside Media maintains a 40 million euro credit line in favor of TRECE, of which the channel has already used 34.7 million.
During the latest fiscal year, the amount drawn increased by another five million euros. The bishops’ television channel, therefore, continues to need support from its parent group to cover needs that its commercial activity cannot meet.
This is not a temporary situation. In 2022, TRECE had already accumulated around 108 million euros in losses since its birth. Three years later, the bill is approaching 118 million.
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The Episcopal Conference may legitimately consider that having its own television channel justifies absorbing economic losses. A media outlet linked to the Church does not necessarily have to be measured solely by its business profitability. But precisely because it is a project sustained for years under the CEE umbrella, it is reasonable to question the proportionality between the resources employed and the results obtained.
From 50 to 118 million in accumulated losses
The channel’s economic trajectory reveals the scale of the problem. In 2014, accumulated losses were already around 50 million euros. A year later they had risen to 63.5 million.
The granting in 2015 of its own DTT license by Mariano Rajoy’s government eliminated one of the main costs the channel then bore: renting a frequency. That structural advantage also failed to bring the project to profitability.
More than a decade later, accumulated losses are approaching 118 million euros. It is true that the annual pace of red ink has slowed considerably, but the television channel is still unable to finance its own operations.
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A 1.7% audience share after sixteen years
TRECE currently maintains an approximate screen share of 1.7%. Its programming combines news, entertainment, film and religious programming in a market dominated by Atresmedia and Mediaset and subject to increasing audience fragmentation.
The company itself acknowledges in its 2025 accounts that the loss of advertising investment from traditional television to digital formats will likely continue. In this scenario, its strategy focuses on cost containment and maintaining its current line of activity.
The economic difficulties facing DTT do not affect TRECE alone. Precisely El Confidencial analyzes its accounts ahead of the upcoming launch of La Séptima, the new channel led by José Miguel Contreras, whose promoters will have to face a market that is especially challenging for television stations outside the two major audiovisual groups.
But for the episcopal television channel the question is no longer whether a newly born project will manage to find its space. Sixteen years have passed since its creation and the channel remains in the red.
A question of priorities for the Episcopal Conference
The balance sheet raises an issue that goes beyond a profit-and-loss statement. The Episcopal Conference does not run its media group like any ordinary audiovisual investor. The existence of these outlets is also justified by an institutional, informational and evangelizing purpose.
Precisely for that reason, results should not be measured exclusively in commercial terms. But that same consideration requires asking what communicative and evangelizing fruits justify an accumulated investment of such magnitude.
While numerous dioceses and parishes face economic difficulties, the need to preserve heritage and problems sustaining various apostolic works, the television project promoted by the Episcopal Conference has accumulated 118 million euros in losses without yet achieving economic self-sufficiency.
The reduction in the annual deficit is an improvement and should be acknowledged. But losing less does not mean the problem has been solved. The 118 million accumulated and the 34.7 million already used from Ábside’s credit line keep open, sixteen years later, a question about the priorities of the Episcopal Conference and about the results the Spanish Church obtains in exchange for sustaining its television project.