In the first major announcement to come out of one of the two powerful consortia awarded Spain's new free-to-air digital terrestrial television licenses, Veo TV has named Andres Tejero as CEO.

Tejero was previously director of corporate resources at Telefonica under former chairman and CEO Juan Villalonga.

The appointment was followed by a report in financial newspaper Expansion, owned by Veo-backer Recoletos, which suggested that Recoletos looks to extend its collaborations with multimedia giant Telefonica Media into new content areas and markets. Telefonica Media owns a 5% stake in the UK's Pearson, Recoletos' majority shareholder.

Through Pearson, Veo has connections to European giant RTL Group and its backer Bertelsmann, the latter rumored to be studying extending its media collaborations with Telefonica Media as well. Bertelsmann, through RTL, is already a minority shareholder in Telefonica Media-backed broadcasters Antena 3 and Via Digital.

Net TV, the second consortium to receive a DTT license, will compete with its connections to content through hefty TV and film backers Grupo Arbol/Globomedia, Telson/Cartel, Europroducciones, France's TF1 and Portuguese broadcaster SIC.

Not much else is yet known about the plans of the two new DTT platforms. Both were expected to begin broadcasting this summer, but the Expansion report pushes Veo's launch back to February 2002 with a preliminary goal of cornering a 5-7% market share. They are expected to create serious content and advertising competition for existing broadcasters. In addition, the two new platforms will lay the groundwork for all of Spain's networks, required by law to convert to digital technology by 2011.