Spanish TV Channel Nixes Live Bullfights

Spanish state television will not show any live bullfights this year, bowing to restrictions on gore on daytime TV but disrupting a time-honored tradition. Televised bullfights had been a viewer magnet for public-TV station TVE, and fans are seeing red, the Guardian reports. "It is obvious that watching bullfights on the television does not traumatize children," says one politician.

In the past, TVE showed up to a dozen live bullfights each year, and popular matadors won the channel up to 24% of the viewing audience. Bullfighting still airs on many other stations, but critics say the decision is a tacit surrender to the anti-bullfighting lobby. A bullfighting trade group calls the new schedule "a shameless, unjust attack on culture." (More bullfighting stories.)