Portuguese news media, in general, face a serious problem of economic survival because the audience rates and circulation figures are generally very low, making advertising their major (or unique) source of income. But the advertising market itself is small given all the existing competitors, which puts them all under enormous pressure, as they must accept either some unpleasant advertising formats or significant price reductions. In recent years, it is more and more common to find intrusions of advertising in the editorial area. Despite this, all the editors interviewed in our sample strongly deny any abusive interference from external parties. Independence from advertisers is rather common in the bigger or more important news media, but the same does not apply to smaller companies (regional or local newspapers and radio stations), where the fight for survival often compels them to make some commercial deals with an editorial counterpart.
Regarding sponsorship, some newspapers now have the good practice of informing readers whenever their reporters travel by invitation of some company or institution. And a lot of examples of sponsored content or content marketing are increasingly marking the landscape of newspapers pages and websites. The most relevant news media now have specific departments to develop commercial products in a journalistic form (the so-called infomercials and advertorials), trying to gain some extra credibility for being confused with real news. This content is usually labelled as “sponsored content”, but sometimes in very soft or subtle ways, confusing readers as is the intention.
Public advertising, on the other hand, is not relevant enough to compromise the independence of news media. In 2018, the total amount of advertisement with a public origin was EUR 1.3 million, compared to EUR 915,000 in the previous year. National media received 77 per cent of it, and regional or local media the other 23 per cent. Television, as usual, got the largest share, with EUR 595,000, followed by the press (EUR 350,000), the radio (EUR 262,000), and the digital arena (EUR 32,000). Values are relatively low, as we can see, and they are strictly scrutinised, in order to ensure the transparency of the whole process. A law issued in 2015 establishes the rules to be followed in these processes and the obligation for all public institutions and departments to record what advertisement services are bought, from whom and at what price. This information must be sent to the Digital Platform of the State Institutional Advertising, monitored and managed by the regulatory entity for the media (ERC, n.d.).
In May 2020, due to the serious crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, which brought about serious losses for news media in advertising revenues, the state decided to grant them emergency aid. A total of EUR15 million was distributed to different media (television, radio, press, online), in the form of advertising campaigns paid in advance. There was some controversy about the criteria followed by the government to allocate the different amounts to the various media. Two online publications refused those advertising campaigns, claiming to do so in the pursuit of total independence from the state.
After all, the big problem here seems to be the economic weakness of Portuguese media companies. There is strong competition and decreasing advertising revenues with more and more revenue taken up by global online distributing platforms like Google, Facebook, YouTube, and so on. In such a scenario, it becomes easier for advertisers to get what they want and if they don’t, there is a high likelihood that a competitor will.
