Balado continued but the host of the show, aired on channel Cuatro, decided to challenge the man.
“Isa, forgive me for interrupting you ... but did he just touch your bottom?” Nacho Abad asked.
Balado said he had, prompting Abad to demand the “idiot” be put on camera. The reporter asked him why he felt the need to touch her bottom, something the man denied.
He smiled, tousled her hair and walked away.
‘It makes me so mad’
At one point, Balado apologised to the studio for what had happened.
“No, you have nothing to feel sorry for,” said Abad. “It makes me so mad.”
The reporter later explained that the same man, reportedly aged 25, continued to linger nearby and was accosting and touching other women he came across in the street.
Police later said that a man had been arrested for allegedly assaulting a reporter while she was doing a live television show.
Mediaset Espana, which owns Cuatro, issued a statement expressing its support for Balado after the “absolutely intolerable situation” she suffered.
Yolanda Díaz, Spain’s Labour minister and deputy prime minister, said the incident should not go unpunished.
She said: “It is machismo that makes journalists suffer sexual assaults like this, and the aggressors are unrepentant in front of the camera.”
Abad later praised the “professionalism” of Balado, who began working as a journalist in 2014.
Speaking on Spain’s COPE radio station, Abad explained that police were contacted from the newsroom, with officers arriving at the scene in a matter of minutes.
He said: “Isa decided to report the crime and the police, doing an excellent job, immediately put handcuffs on him and arrested him.”
The suspect was later freed by a judge but will be subject to questioning at a later date.
The public prosecutor has asked for a restraining order to prevent the man from trying to communicate with Balado or coming within 300 metres of her.
