Simultaneous interpreting for the media (SMI) is a relatively new phenomenon that has radically altered several key factors in interlingual intercultural mediation. Papers published on the subject all stress its distinctive features vis-à-vis traditional conference interpreting. In this paper the author limits himself to pointing out what he deems to be the most salient features at the communicative, translational, neurophysiological, psychomotor, pedagogical, deontological, social and financial levels. The author refers to the expanded models of verbal communication and mediation that he has developed on the basis of Garcia Landa’s 1990 models of speech act and prototypical translation as initially presented in Viagiio (1998), and to relevance as defined by Sperber & Wilson (1986/1995).