News 4 min read
Oihane Mateos dies at 45 after a career spanning Basque TV and digital news
The EITB journalist moved from presenting major newscasts to leading Orain, the broadcaster's mobile- and web-focused digital news service.
Oihane Mateos spent years appearing inside the traditional television news world before helping build the kind of news service designed to reach people who may never sit down for a scheduled bulletin. The EITB journalist and digital news chief died on Aug. 8 at age 45, the broadcaster announced. EITB did not disclose a cause of death.
Mateos was from Ibarra and began her career at Euskadi Irratia as an intern. She later worked on a range of Euskal Telebista programs and became a reporter and presenter on “Gaur Egun” and “Teleberri.” She also directed “De Boca en Boca” on ETB2.
For television audiences in the Basque Country, those credits belonged to a familiar broadcast career. But Mateos's final professional chapter moved largely behind the scenes, into the decisions that determine where and how journalism appears online.
She was appointed head of Digital News at EITB in 2022, taking responsibility for news on the web and social networks. EITB says she put major effort into transforming the newsroom and that Orain, its digital news service, began under her leadership.
The shift was especially visible in December 2023, when EITB launched WhatsApp Orain in Basque. The service was built around mobile consumption, video and selective updates rather than the visual language of a conventional television bulletin. EITB said it was aimed particularly at people under 30. Mateos took part in the public launch alongside other members of the news team.
That project also showed how entertainment-era habits have changed the news business. Viewers accustomed to vertical clips, messaging apps and personalized feeds increasingly encounter journalism in the same spaces where they follow creators, friends and pop culture. For a broadcaster, adapting to that environment requires more than posting television clips online; it means changing formats, timing and distribution.
Orain Berriak received a Platinum Customer Experience Award in 2024 for best IT project in Public Administration, with Mateos and systems director Iñaki Regidor accepting the prize. In June 2025, EITB expanded the effort with the Orain platform, bringing together news, short videos, live streams, photos and alerts. At that launch, the broadcaster said its digital community had grown beyond four million users.
Mateos's professional path therefore ran through three eras of the same media organization: radio, television and a digital ecosystem centered on phones. She was both an on-air journalist and, later, a manager of the systems used to reach audiences outside the old schedule.
EITB's farewell emphasized the energy she invested in its newsroom transformation and her continuing responsibility for Orain. The loss is personal for colleagues and family, but it also closes a career that had become closely associated with the broadcaster's effort to modernize its news service.
At 45, Mateos was still in the middle of that work. The products she helped develop remain part of the everyday way EITB communicates with audiences — a digital footprint built by someone whose career began long before news arrived through a WhatsApp notification.
