He is considered to own 64% of the Prisa group, a conglomerate which includes El País, the most important newspaper in the country; the radio channel Cadena SER; the new TV channel Cuatro (TV), the digital TV platform Digital + (including Canal +), which has a monopoly on Spain's digital TV and a number of radio channels and local televisions. Prisa also has important interests in editing books and owns the Editorial Santillana, Ediciones El País, El País Aguilar Alfaguara, Altea, Tiendas Crisol, Taurus and Richmon Publishing.

Polanco's media are known for being clearly progressive or left-wing and for having helped the Socialist Party in its worst moments (when the Felipe González's government was accused of corruption and state terrorism). More conservative rivals in the media, such as Diario ABC or La Razón newspapers or COPE radio, some times accuse Polanco's related media of having a monopoly on Spanish information and of distorting reality for their own purposes.

In spite of this, when the conservative and one of the two biggest parties of Spain, Popular Party, was in government, it didn't take any action against Polanco's media, and even allowed Polanco to not perform a judicial sentence which didn't let Prisa buy the Antena 3 radio channel.

Polanco's related media is said to have influenced on the media protest against Popular Party's management of the train bombs in Madrid which represented for PP's candidate Mariano Rajoy the final push for the defeat of his candidacy in the 14 of March Spanish elections and the victory of the José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's PSOE, when a few days before polls were telling that the tough ballot was slightly favourable to Rajoy's candidacy.

As an example of controversy about this conglomerate, in 2005 Prisa asked the government for a license to transform the pay TV channel Canal Plus Spain into an open channel. The Government finally conceded this license and Cuatro (TV) channel started broadcasting in November 2005. Since then the opposition has expressed their concern and complained about the lack of dialogue about this subject.

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