Portugal Audio Visual Media
The Portuguese television market is dominated by the three national channels RTP, SIC and TVI, which together had a combined average audience of 47% in 2019. SIC (Grupo IMPRESA), had the largest market share, closing the year with an average share of 19.2%, thus becoming the leading national television channel. TVI (Media Capital Group) came in second with an average market share of 15.6%. Finally, RTP1 came in last with an average market share of 12.5%.
SIC’s leading edge also extended outside the generalist panorama. Looking at the main groups of channels – thus including information channels and others – SIC lead in 2019 with an average market share of 22.8%. TVI and RTP1 had an average market share of 17.7% and 16.7%, respectively. This marks an important milestone in the history of television in Portugal, as in previous years the leading generalist television channel has been TVI.
According to ANACOM (communications regulatory authority), the number of pay-tv customers in Portugal is growing. In 2019 there was an increase of 3.7% compared to the previous year, which corresponds to 147 thousand new subscribers. This was exclusively due to offers supported by fiber optic, which registered 285 thousand more subscribers than the previous year, translating into an increase of 17.5%. Since the first quarter of 2018, this main form of access to the pay-tv service reached around 1.9 million subscribers at the end of 2019, which corresponds to 46.9% in total. Cable TV followed, with around 1.3 million subscribers (32.7%), satellite technology with 464 thousand subscribers (11.4%), and ADSL, which registered 370 thousand new subscribers (9.1%). The market is therefore currently more dynamic in terms of technological competition than it was a few years ago.
What we called the television sector a few years ago is today a highly fragmented constellation of technological formats and of content distribution and consumption practices. Over the years, pay-TV has become the main communication axis for most of the Portuguese population. The popularization of triple-play (3P) packages created an interesting dynamic in the national market, adding TV as the main offer in Internet and the telephone services packages offered by operators. However, over recent years digital and online components are becoming increasingly central.
According to an ANACOM report, in 2019, the operator NOS lead on pay-tv by providing the highest share of pay-tv subscribers (40.1%), followed by MEO (39.6%), Vodafone (16.3%) and NOWO (3.9%). Vodafone and MEO were the ones that gained the most subscribers compared to 2018, in net terms (a 1.1% and 0.4% increase, respectively). A report from Observatório da Comunicação- OberCom, (Communication Observatory), ranked NOS has the highest revenue per subscriber in annual terms, followed by MEO, NOWO and Vodafone. The data collected by OberCom, shows that a large share of the revenue is due to the inclusion of additional services, such as premium channel subscriptions, extra data packages for mobile phones, etc. which are normally not included in the initial contract. The inclusion of mobility and internet services in the TV and communications packages has generated opportunities for hardware suppliers to allow consumer demand.
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