Portugal wants more public DTT channels
July 24, 2020
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
The Portuguese Parliament has approved a proposal by left-wing political party Bloco da Esquerda (BE) to increase the number of public service TV channels on the national DTT network.
According to the draft resolution, which was also voted by members of other political parties, the Parliament will now recommend to the Government to ‘take the necessary measures’ to extend the TV offer.
Specifically, the addition of four channels is proposed – the public TV services of the autonomous regions of Azores and Madeira, as well as RTP Internacional and RTP África, reports Economia Online.
The last time the DTT offer in Portugal was extended was in 2016, when the RTP 3 and RTP Memória channels were added.
The BE also recalled that there have been no new developments on the Government’s initiative from September 2018 to increase the offer of commercial TV channels.
At the time, the Government proposed to the Media Regulatory Authority (ERC) the licensing of two new thematic TV channels, dedicated to news and sports.