The government proposes a support model for press distribution and sales with two pillars, lasting three years and total funding of 3.5 million euros.
The proposal is contained in a letter sent by the office of the Minister of the Presidency to the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities (ANMP) and the Private Media Platform, to which Lusa had access this Saturday, March 7th, where the model of public support for distribution and points of sale is presented, with a view to “pronouncing the main entities by March 23rd”.
The proposed model is based on two pillars, the first (I) aims to support distribution activity throughout the territory and the second (II) to support points of sale in low-density territories.
“Considering the scarcity and asymmetry of available information, we opted for a temporary solution, with future reassessment, as well as some sharing of responsibilities, with the companies whose newspapers are distributed in the case of the first pillar, and with the municipalities, in the case of support for points of sale, in order to ensure the alignment of interests between the parties”, reads the proposal to which Lusa had access.
“The budget allocation available for the three years of this program is around 1.15 million euros per year, divided into around 2/3 of the amount for pillar I, and 1/3 for pillar II”, according to the document.
“As planned no PACS [Plano de Ação para a Comunicação Social]this model now proposed represents a global financial effort by the State of around 3.5 million euros over the three-year period as a whole”, according to the proposal.
In detail, in pillar I, which concerns distribution support, this will be awarded through an international public tender, divided into two territorial lots: lot 1 concerns the North and Center and lot 2 the West and Tagus Valley, Greater Lisbon, Setúbal Peninsula, Alentejo and Algarve.
The expected base value is around 2.8 million euros for three years (approximately 900 thousand euros per year).
This model aims to “compensate for the higher costs of distribution in low-density territories, ensuring continuity of service throughout the country”.
The conditions include the possibility of different operators for each batch, to promote competition; guaranteed minimum distribution: at least one point of sale in each municipality on the continent; availability of newspapers until 10:00 on the day of publication; and non-discriminatory distribution of all periodicals.
It also includes the obligation to report monthly on sales, returns, costs and points of sale; and progressive reduction in public support over the three years, with the possibility of compensation if the distributor reduces the prices charged to the media.
Pillar II, which concerns direct support for newspaper sales outlets in low-density territories through agreements between PT MediaLab and municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants, “the terms of the agreement will be previously discussed with the ANMP, and equal treatment is ensured between the low-density municipalities covered, with the differentiation into two groups of municipalities which, considering the respective number of inhabitants, will benefit from support of different value in view of the different pressures on the sustainability of the newspaper sales activity”.
In municipalities with less than 5 thousand inhabitants, State support is 3 thousand euros/year (equivalent to 250 euros/month), an amount to which each municipality can add up to 30% more support.
In municipalities with between 10,000 and 5,000 inhabitants, State support is 2,500 euros per year and this amount can be supplemented by the municipality by up to an additional 30%.
The State estimates spending around 215 thousand euros per year on this pillar (around 650 thousand euros in three years).
“The agreements between the State and municipalities will last 3 years, and the same horizon must be adopted in agreements between municipalities and points of sale”, according to the proposal.
It will be up to city halls to choose the points of sale to be supported; decide whether to concentrate support on a single point or distribute it among several; possibly supplement financing; and publicly justify the choice based on criteria such as distance from other points of sale, sales history and operating conditions.
All of this aims to ensure that the Pillar I public tender and the Pillar II framework agreement can be launched and signed, respectively, in April.
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