Spain: Bullfighting returns to television

Spain’s state television said Friday that it would again air live bullfights after a six-year halt, helping a tradition hit by falling popularity and the economic crisis. The policy change comes under the new conservative Popular Party government, which opposes all attempts to curtail bullfighting in Spain. Under the previous Socialist government, state television had stopped showing live evening bullfights for economic reasons and because they coincided with children’s viewing times. Bullfighting has been hit hard by the economic crisis, with fewer bullfights and smaller attendance. In 2011, the northeastern region of Catalonia became Spain’s second Spanish region to ban bullfighting, joining the Canary Islands, which stopped the practice in 1991.