Portuguese Media Sector Debates Outdated Regulations and Digital Transformation

The media sector is currently undergoing a profound transformation process, and adapting to this change and implementing legal reforms has become an unavoidable necessity for industry players. In a panel held within the scope of the +Media Leaders awards, organized by ECO and +M and held for the first time, the state and future of the sector were discussed. At the event, which took place on Wednesday afternoon at Estúdio ECO with the participation of the country's leading communication groups, advertisers, and media agencies, strategies that could save the media's economic models were debated.

WPP Portugal Country Manager Francisco Teixeira began his speech at the panel by emphasizing that change is the only factor of stability in today's business world and stated that the sector is constantly forced to readapt itself to the developments around it. Teixeira argued that trying to stop direct investment in global platforms would be an impossible fallacy, like trying to stop the wind with one's hands, and expressed that adaptation rather than resistance is required in this digitalization process. His assessments highlighted the need for the media sector to view the digital world as an opportunity in order to cope with current economic difficulties.

Parallel to the views of the WPP executive, Unilever Fima & Gallo WW CEO António Casanova took a quite firm and clear stance that the old-type regulatory logic, which he believes is suffocating the sector, must be terminated immediately. Casanova argued that current legal frameworks hinder the development of the sector and that strict rules must be relaxed or removed for the sustainability of economic models. These statements sparked debates among both government officials and sector representatives on how to revise the legal infrastructure to keep the media sector alive.

EDP Foundation and MAAT Manager Miguel Coutinho, another speaker at the event, similarly shared his views on how the sector should proceed by evaluating the opportunities and threats brought by digitalization. Referencing the "This Year Next Year – 2026 Global Midyear Forecast" report, Francisco Teixeira explained that technology giants such as Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon currently control 57.6% of global advertising revenues (excluding China), highlighting the extent of this power loss. The fact that traditional media companies are not among the top 10 in global advertising revenue stood out as a data point that prompts questioning the sector's competitive power against digital platforms.

When looking specifically at Portugal, it was stated that all these economic and operational difficulties seen on a global scale are felt with the same intensity within the country's borders and that the local market is also struggling with similar pressures. The discussions pointed to a conclusion that the market needs to regulate itself and achieve a more flexible structure, including the government's approach to reducing its involvement in the advertising sector. In this context, media leaders expressed that they see both the liberalization of legal regulations and the increase in digital investments to keep up with global trends as the only way to save the media's economic model.