Since the freedom of information in 1977, Spanish radio broadcasting has served as a space for opinion and public discussion. In 1980, Cadena Catalana broadcast an electoral debate, "the first of its kind (...) after the Civil War" (Munso, 2006: 204). However, radio electoral debates have hardly been studied at the state level. This research aims to identify and examine the political debates produced by Spanish radios for the 1982 general elections -the first one after the Catalan debate- and November 2019 -the last to date-establishing a comparison as the first approach towards its technical and formal evolution. An analysis sheet was applied based on the data collected in daily newspaper archives ABC, El Pais, Diario 16 and La Vanguardia websites and social media profiles from radio networks (Cadena SER, Cadena COPE, Onda Cero and RNE). Two national debate programmes were found. Tertulias electorates (1982) and Debates COPE: El voto util (2019), whose moderators participated in semi-structured interviews. The results reveal a contrast in aspects such as the broadcast channel -from analogue to streaming- and audience participation -from the telephone to social networks- although, none of them brought together any candidates for the presidency.
