Jesús de Polanco and the Prisa Group

The main goal of this article is to present Jesús de Polanco’s (1929–2007) successive business initiatives that culminated in the expansion of the PRISA Group (Promotora de Informaciones S.A.), which was the leading Spanish multi-media group of its time.  As well as the interest that his career triggers, Polanco’s biography allows us to address the relationship between the company and politics during the closing decades of the Franco dictatorship and the transition to democracy from a concrete perspective. Those were years marked by profound transformations, not only in the political life of the country but also in its economy, society and business structures that affected the entire communications media sector.