The president of RTP considers, in an interview with Lusa, that for what the company is doing at the moment, “it does not have enough funds” and defends the possibility of capturing advertising in ‘transmission‘ of the group.

“For what we are doing right now, RTP is underfunded and this is being said by various political parties and I subscribe to that statement.“, says Nicolau Santos, who assumed the presidency of the Board of Directors of the public radio and television group a year ago.

“In other words, we are doing much more than what the Concession Agreement required us to do, so we have to think about whether we should continue doing it or not. But the more concrete example is: RTP should or should not become a company that gets closer and closer to the ‘transmission‘, digital platforms, multiplatforms”, asks the manager.

“At first, yes, that is the way”, but “that is not in the Concession Contract, the effort belongs to all of us”, says Nicolau Santos, recalling, for example, that the RTP Play, which from his point of view, is “a Portuguese Netflix, with the great advantage of being completely free”where are the Portuguese series and movies, in addition to being able to see live information.

Just as the RTP Arena was launched, which is for the so-called eSports games, the RTP Palco for sports shows, but “none of that is in the contract”, underlines the president of RTP.

“We think that this path is fundamental, because more and more people watch television through these ‘streamings'”, he says, sharing a “curious figure”: at the beginning of the century 80% of the audience was on general channels, today nowadays there is no longer a 50% traditional audience in traditional channels.

That is to say, “there was a clear change for these platforms”, and, therefore, “we have to try to understand if this trend is really future -it seems to me that it is- and how RTP adapts to the new times”, he continues.

Bet on digital and transmission “surely it will be” in the concession contract proposal

Asked if the commitment to digital and transmission will appear in the proposal for the RTP Concession Contract that the administration will deliver, Nicolau Santos stresses that “it will surely be so”.

The official recalled that in the previous Concession Contract proposal, the then Secretary of State Nuno Artur Silva, who was in charge of the media, made it depend, “for example, the entry of two new channels on digital terrestrial television ”. [TDT] and the launch of new channels (…) an increase in the Audiovisual Contribution [CAV]”.

That is, in this case the “increase of 15 cents in 2023, 10 cents in 2024 and another 10 cents in 2025” was included, but this guideline “was not approved by the Assembly of the Republic.”

“So, by not passing, I had also preemptively said that if there was no increased funding, all of these hypotheses would fall apart. Now, therefore, what we are doing now, Board of Directors, is to look at precisely what depended on that financing, we are assuming that there is no such increase in financing and some things that were there are not going to be done, namely new channels, two new channels on digital terrestrial television, this is obviously not going to happen”, he says.

But, “what do we want more? We want the possibility to be left open that, precisely on streaming platforms, we can capture advertising or even subscribe to products that do not broadcast on an open signal, it seems to us that this is obviously the way to go”, defends Nicolau Santos.

Opposite case, “we have to look at RTP again and think about what RTP will be like in the future if it has no possibility of increasing its funding and the costs continue to rise“, he stressed.

This “is not, from my point of view, a very happy path for RTP, because to compensate for these situations we will surely have to go more and more to the grid and eventually have less interesting, cheaper products, do more repetitions, which takes audience breaks,” says the manager.

So, “you enter a spiral in which audiences are lost and the quality of the service provided is less and less”, so, he insists, “there is a reflection that is important to do about the future of RTP” .

losses. Directors have to cut 5% of the budget this year

In fact, “when we ask the directors will cut about 5% of their budget this yearPrecisely because of the situation of losses that we are going to register, the network was also one of those affected”, but “all the directors were asked precisely not to be just the network to pay the bill”, he says.

However, “the truth is that the grid will also reduce your investment and you will probably do more reps”, regrets.

Analyzing the “big trends” that can be seen both on the BBC and on Nordic television, the transmission “It is the path that is being taken,” he says.

“Linear channels are clearly losing audience”, and there are some that “perhaps it doesn’t make sense for them to continue, while streaming has been gaining preponderance”, stresses the president of RTP, referring, however, to the fact that it is necessary to question if “as public television” there is “the capacity to have commercially profitable streaming”.

This is because there are private televisions that are also in this area.

Wouldn’t it be more interesting if we all came together to present joint products that would effectively be more capable of attracting audiences because they would obviously have a greater diversity?” he asks.

Nicolau Santos says that this is “a very initial dialogue, which is just beginning”, but, in any case, RTP is on its way.

“As I said, RTP Play is a true Netflix and what we make available for free to the Portuguese is extraordinary“, he reiterates, highlighting that an effort is being made to publicize this platform, which has various contents available, including international series and movies.