The Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Pedro Duarte, guaranteed this Monday in Porto that RTP will have the necessary financing to fulfill the public service as soon as it eliminates fat, waste and gains efficiency
Speaking after participating in the conversation “Journalism: What Freedom and What Future?”, which took place at the Coliseu do Porto, the government official clarified some of the ideas addressed by the panel of guests he was part of.
“One of the measures we are proposing is to end commercial advertising on RTP, precisely to give them a competitive advantage. Now this cannot mean a weakening (…) particularly from a financial point of view and that is why we have State Budget for 2025 a planned capital increase of more than 14 million for RTP”, Pedro Duarte began by saying.
And he continued: “we are going to bring about changes within RTP in order to gain efficiency and combat fat and waste. Once this is done, we, obviously, will not allow RTP to lose relevance, lose impact for reasons financial. That won’t happen.”
Once this premise is achieved, the minister highlighted, “RTP will have the funding necessary to fulfill the public media service” which the Government says it believes “is important for the country”.
Emphasizing that the “Government will not manage RTP”, Pedro Duarte highlighted that what has been said by the Government “is supported by what has been given by the governing bodies, by the RTP board of directors, which has already identified, which has already made proposals very objective regarding some of these wastes, inefficiencies that RTP has and some are already public”.
In this context, the plan for 250 workers to leave RTP and 125 to enter, assured Pedro Duarte, is the responsibility of the “RTP administration”.
“Regarding people, what we are told is that the staff is too expensive and inhibits other types of investment, namely technological and similar investments and is out of adjustment with current needs”, he added.
In relation to the loss of advertising revenue, “there are many ways to compensate, in the OE for 2025 a budget is foreseen that more than doubles the loss of revenue, so what will happen is the reinforcement of RTP’s revenue”, insisted the minister.
Still according to Pedro Duarte, for the Portuguese “RTP has been increasingly expensive, with each passing year more is paid for RTP and there is a smaller and smaller audience and there is less and less impact on Portuguese society”, attributing it to o, also to the “context” that is experienced worldwide.
Source: www.jornaldenegocios.pt