Want to really make sense of Spanish society and Spanish current affairs? Tuning into the funniest news satire TV programmes or reading the satirical press will help you to understand the Spanish zeitgeist.
Satirical journalism has been around in Spain for over two centuries, even managing to survive throughout Franco’s 40-year dictatorship, albeit with fewer publications.
But ever since Spain had its transición to democracy in the late seventies, satire in the media has been able to operate freely, often testing the limits of what’s acceptable.
Crucially, Spanish news satire offers foreigners in Spain a chance to truly understand what’s on Spaniards’ minds, improve their Spanish (as a high level of understanding is usually needed) and get to know the Spanish sense of humour a bit better.
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El Intermedio
If you turn on La Sexta after 9pm any night during the week, the chances are you’ve come across El Intermedio.
El Intermedio is a long-running satire TV show focusing heavily on the politics of the day. The presenters, editorial line of the show, and La Sexta more generally, are certainly left-leaning.
Launched back in 2006, El Intermedio was dreamt up by Miguel Sánchez Romero, the writer behind several other comedy and satire shows in Spain.
The programme has been hosted since 2006 by El Gran Wyoming, one of the most recognisable faces on the Spanish screen known for his shirt, tie and braces, and is famous for its biting reporting, vox-pop interviews across Spain and its satirical impressions.
El Mundo Today
El Mundo Today is a satirical website and online newspaper that has been active since 2009. Perhaps more similar to a British sense of humour with wit and sarcasm, El Mundo Today produces some genuinely laugh-out-loud headlines that capture the ridiculousness of Spanish political life and beyond.
Examples include “Forbes List and Epstein List identical”, “Humanity agrees to send Elon Musk to Mars as soon as possible” and “Spain’s Socialists hot on the heels of the PP as most corrupt party”
In short, El Mundo Today is like the Spanish version of American satirical news website The Onion.
The writers take great effort to make the site look official, using a traditional online newspaper format, which means that their satire is sometimes taken too literally, like in the case of the Colombian news channel who fell for it and tried to interview one of El Mundo Today’s mischievous writers.
READ ALSO: A quick guide to political bias on Spanish TV and radio
El Jueves
El Jueves is a satirical magazine based in Barcelona that’s been published since 1977, a time when freedom of expression and freedom of the press were still relatively new concepts as Spain transitioned into democracy.
Even the title and sub-head of the magazine is slightly tongue-in-cheek.
For many years, El Jueves’s front page ran a tagline La revista que sale los miércoles (“The magazine that comes out on Wednesdays”) but of course El Jueves in Spanish means Thursday. Now it describes itself as “the most feared magazine”.
The now monthly mag sometimes finds itself in legal trouble for its satire and coverage, as many find its humour a bit too extreme and graphic. In that sense, it bares quite a lot of resemblance to French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
For example, they’ve ended up in court for caricatures depicting Spain’s King (then Prince) Felipe VI having sex with his wife Letizia or police officers snorting cocaine.
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Mongolia
Mongolia is another of Spain’s satirical magazines, though much newer than El Jueves, as it was founded back in 2012.
Coverage of the mag in the Spanish press states that the writers are influenced by the humour of Monty Python, and although the majority of the content is satirical, the magazine also includes a section on hard news where real political and social issues are included. Stylistically, it includes more humorous pop art and collage-style photographical mock-ups than El Jueves, which is primarily comical drawings.
Mongolia has also found itself in legal difficulties due to its coverage offending people. Just recently in October 2025, a judge shelved a lawsuit by ultra-Catholic group Hazte Oír against the mag for the ‘hate crime’ of depicting baby Jesus as a turd.
READ ALSO: A foreigner’s guide to understanding the Spanish press in five minutes
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Polònia
No, this isn’t a Polish show. Polònia is a Catalan comedy TV show and one of the most watched shows in the entire Catalonia region, with over a million viewers.
Polónia focuses on current affairs, often featuring impressions or parodies of politicians and celebrities. Most of the sketches are in Catalan, but those featuring Spanish figures are in Spanish.
The name Polònia comes from the Spanish slur “polaco” (meaning Polish or Pole) used to insult Catalans.
