Television – Although time devoted to news and information has been increasing in free-to-air TV programming, the presence of entertainment and of the fiction area (which mostly means “telenovelas”) is still much stronger, particular in commercial channels. This trend is clear when we look at the comparative shares – measured in terms of time devoted to each item – offered by the main channels (see Table 10).
Table 10. Diversity of thematic areas in television
| TVI | SIC | RTP1 | ||||
| (com.) | (com.) | (publ.) | ||||
| 2006 | 2009 | 2006 | 2009 | 2006 | 2009 | |
| News and information | 14.6 % | 15.4 % | 10.8 % | 14.8 % | 21.6 % | 26.1 % |
| Fiction | 36.9 % | 30.1 % | 34.7 % | 30.3 % | 21.1 % | 19.2 % |
| Entertainment | 13.9 % | 16.2 % | 14.4 % | 14.7 % | 25.0 % | 29.7 % |
| Sport | 2.1 % | 2.5 % | 0.9 % | 1.3 % | 4.8 % | 5.0 % |
| General culture / knowledge | 2.6 % | 1.9 % | 2.5 % | 3.1 % | 4.9 % | 4.2 % |
| Children and youth | 2.5 % | 2.3 % | 8.7 % | 6.1 % | 3.0 % | 1.5 % |
| Others | 3.4 % | 8.8 % | 4.0 % | 11.4 % | 3.8 % | 3.3 % |
| Advertising | 24.0 % | 22.9 % | 23.9 % | 18.3 % | 16.6 % | 11.2 % |
Source: MARKTEST, Anuário 2006 and Anuário 2009.
News and information programmes, in the main TV channels, are almost reduced to the evening news bulletins (20h00). But other news formats (interviews, debates, in-depth reporting, etc.) are very much absent, except for some specific situations in public television (RTP1 and RTP2). Besides this, the evening news bulletins, as said before, include a great deal of soft news, fait-divers, shocking reporting, and trivial subjects.
Each of the three main TV stations also has a channel exclusively devoted to news and information: SIC-Notícias (a subsidiary of SIC), RTPN (a subsidiary of RTP) and TVI-24 (a subsidiary of TVI). But all of them are distributed through cable and are paid for, which means they do not reach more than half of Portuguese families, with low audience rates. This limitation notwithstanding, those channels have a more diverse set of news formats, including debates, extensive interviews, and special features.
More innovative news formats are being developed online, especially by the online editions of traditional media, and multimedia approaches (infographs, podcasts, videos) are expanding.
As for newspapers, the trend goes more towards popularization, soft-news and ‘light’ products, even among quality papers. The differences between newspapers are not as evident as they used to be. As for the free dailies, they are very similar too. They grew very fast in the years 2006-2008, but they have been quickly decreasing in circulation (see Table 11), because they did not invest in their newsrooms and they failed to get enough advertising.
Table 11. Rise and fall of the Portuguese free (not paid-for) newspapers
| Jun-06 | Dec-06 | Jun-07 | Dec-07 | Jun-08 | Dec-08 | Jun-09 | Dec-09 | Oct-10 | |
| Destak | 174,016 | 177,403 | 177,416 | 172,576 | 168,758 | 138,807 | 93,775 | 117,696 | 93,400 |
| Metro | 159,825 | 160,409 | 182,207 | 162,604 | 181,515 | 157,167 | 102,548 | 112,916 | 102,500 |
| GlobalNoticias | X | X | X | 150,483 | 196,787 | 195,088 | 99,567 | 100,574 | XX |
| Meia Hora | X | X | X | 88,551 | 71,589 | 34,009 | 25,871 | XX | XX |
| OJE (eco) | 15,420 | 18,150 | 24,473 | 25,847 | 27,778 | 27,993 | 27,690 | 26,644 | 25,783 |
| Diário Desportivo(sport) | X | X | 87,704 | XX | XX | XX | XX | XX | XX |
| TOTAL DAILIES | 349,261 | 355,962 | 471,800 | 600,061 | 646,427 | 553,064 | 349,451 | 357,830 | 221,683 |
| Sexta (weekly) | X | X | X | 312,131 | 319,516 | 212,162 | XX | XX | XX |
| TOTAL DAILIES + WEEKLY | 349,261 | 355,962 | 471,800 | 912,192 | 965,943 | 765,226 | 349,451 | 357,830 | 221,683 |
Note: The ‘X’ mark means that the newspaper in question had not been launched yet; the ‘XX’ mark means that the newspaper in question ceased publication.
Source: APCT
