On 17 November 2009 the first co-regulation code for the audiovisual media sector was established in Spain: "2010 Co-regulation Code for the Quality of Audiovisual Contents in Navarra". This Code is pioneering in the field and, taking into account the content of the recently approved General Law on Audiovisual Communication, is an example of the kind of work that shall be carried out in the future by Spain's National Media Council (Consejo Estatal de Medios Audiovisuales, aka, CEMA) or the corresponding regulatory body.This initiative shows the need to apply co-regulatory codes to the national systems of regulation in the audiovisual sector, as the European institutions urged in their latest Directive in 2010. This article addresses three issues that demonstrate the need for and advantages of applying coregulation practices to guarantee the protection of minors, pluralism, and the promotion of media literacy: the failure of traditional regulatory instruments and the inefficiency of selfregulation; the conceptual definition of co-regulation as an instrument separated from selfregulation and regulation; and the added value of co-regulation in its application to concrete areas.