“There is one competitor that managed to defeat CNN, which is CMTV. We think there will be two, CMTV and Now”

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Leading the news channel segment is, admittedly, MediaLivre's goal with Now, a channel that turned one year old in June. With a share of 1.7% last month, three times that recorded in the month it started, Carlos Rodrigues admits that the approach to other channels is being "much faster" than expected.

Starting on Monday, the late night schedule will be reinforced. “ We hired Major General Isidro , who has caused so much controversy in recent days. We were lucky that he was on the market and, starting on Monday, he will start a new section, with his own name, with new graphics, with a new anchor, at midnight. I believe that this time slot will also quickly fall to us”, says the director of Now and also of CMTV.

“If you ask what the company will be like in three years, I would say that MediaLivre will consolidate the Now project, it will continue to grow with CMTV, we will complete the shift we are making in relation to the digital universe in order to improve our digital products and, certainly, in three years we will have more television projects than we have today” , anticipates the editorial general director of the group that owns Record, Sábado and Jornal de Negócios.

With the paper crisis as a backdrop, Carlos Rodrigues argues, however, that “the biggest crisis is that of generalist television channels”, RTP1, SIC and TVI.

“ These three stations will continue to erode, I have no doubt about that, for several reasons. First of all, they have an absurd cost structure. These are three television projects whose value proposition is based on products made according to the old economy. Now, that economy has disappeared and the generalist channels continue to spend exactly the same money, or more, than they did 10, 15 and 20 years ago. That is absurd. It is tempting fate. This will end badly,” he says in an interview.

The group's projects, ambition for the channels, competition, media management, and the representation of political forces are some of the topics covered.

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It was the consolidation of the television project within the company. MediaLivre now has two television channels, which is important to consolidate the television option within the company. We had to expand the project, we had to strengthen it. We are still in the phase of studying, time by time, what the public is asking for.

We see more and more people joining us, whether spectators, social protagonists or experts. We have also recently hired General Isidro [Morais Pereira], who left a competing project and is joining us, he will strengthen the international team.

I have noticed that there are three priority areas for this channel: international analysis – where we were fortunate enough to have personalities such as General Isidro and Germano [Almeida] join us throughout this year, which greatly strengthened our project –, politics – we had a very intense year politically, especially because we were surprised by the early elections, we continue to be very strong in this area – and sport , where we also have a very important and interesting presence, especially because it is a project that is distinct from CMTV and ends up being one of the three pillars of this channel.

It is a growing project, which is already experiencing notable growth at the end of the year, and which within some time will surely be the leader in this market segment.

On cable television we already have a largely majority project, but here, at Now, this will also happen.

In our company, all teams know that we have to work towards leadership and we usually achieve it. In cable television we already have a largely majority project, but here at Now, that will also happen. Fortunately, it happened much faster than we thought with regard to RTP3.

It is also happening much faster than I personally thought, in relation to the two main competitors, SIC Notícias and CNN, which have also strengthened and significantly improved their respective operations.

This is also a positive effect of Now's existence on the market. And we came, above all, to prove that the idea that there was a saturation of Portuguese information channels in particular, but of national information in general, is wrong.

Yes, exactly. And it happened, all the channels grew. I think it's proof that we brought a lot of viewers to the cable market who weren't there before.

CMTV, contrary to what many people said, has grown a lot. In fact, the growth of CMTV, which was constant and has been constant since the beginning, has been particularly accentuated since Now came into existence.

It's a growth of 15%, 17%, if I'm right. And all the channels have increased. Now has increased much faster, it's getting three times the audience it did in the first month, which is remarkable in a year.

I think, in fact, that in the cable market, especially with the emergence of a new player , Digi, it is increasingly proven that it is a very thriving sector of the economy and this is good for all professionals and for the industry in general .

The increase in competition between cable operators, I believe, will sooner or later place operators before a question that I consider very relevant. It will certainly make sense to invest in differentiated and exclusive television projects for the various platforms.

It will certainly make sense again for [operators] to invest in differentiated and exclusive television projects.

In the early years, CMTV was exclusive to Meo. At the time, operators considered that this made sense, because it was a growth strategy.

At this moment, with the increase in competition, with the emergence of new players , with the emergence of new requests, or many more channels – Now is one of them –, with platforms, to retain audiences and to maintain the emotional bond with their customers, with viewers, with the Portuguese, sooner or later this time will come.

No.

If you ask me what the company will be like in three years, I would say that MediaLivre will consolidate the Now project, it will continue to grow with CMTV, we will complete the shift we are making in relation to the digital universe in order to improve our digital products and, surely, in three years we will have more television projects than we have today.

At the moment, MediaLivre has three main projects. Firstly, there is the Alfa project , in which we are effectively completing the change in our practices and the way we communicate with audiences in the digital universe.

Today, we have teams that work very hard on the path of audiences across different platforms. We have adapted our newsrooms to a chain-based operation, and this chain-based operation is leading to a permanent and constant improvement in our digital practices. This is the Alfa project, and it is currently our priority.

In improving our digital universe. The increase in the supply of video, the increase in work on social networks, networking. What does this mean?

This means that the viewer no longer waits for the news; the news has to appear when it appears, basically, I'm using a pleonasm, a bit like CMTV. It's about transposing that principle of the best first, of speed of execution, to the entire digital universe.

This is the way our newsrooms operate as a network. Although we continue to have a strong presence in print, as our CEO, Dr. Luís Santana, said at the conference he mentioned – our revenues still have a strong preponderance from paper and if anyone in Portugal is going to save paper, it will be Correio da Manhã and Record –, our print projects are increasingly better prepared and better equipped to face the future of journalistic operations also in the digital world.

And this is through the Alfa project, which is in full swing, is at cruising speed and I honestly think that it is something that makes me very pleased, the way in which our teams also respond and manage to overcome challenges at the digital level. That is the first vector.

The second vector is, evidently, the search for improvements in paper operations, in order to overcome the difficulties that the industry increasingly poses to us, both in terms of printing and distribution.

I have written this several times, I have appealed to successive governments to make us see that if the democratic power is not vigilant, we will very quickly run the risk of not being able to get newspapers and books to the entire national territory.

If in three years' time I am invited to be interviewed again, we will already be talking about a company that will certainly have other television channels.

Due to distribution. There is also a problem in terms of printing, because, in fact, newspaper printing in Portugal is increasingly a loss-making activity, with the largest companies experiencing difficulties and we often have to look for solutions abroad .

The third pillar is television , where we have a leading project, absolute in cable, which is CMTV. We have this project, Now, which will soon lead its segment. And, if in three years' time I am invited to be interviewed again, we will already be talking about a company that will certainly have other television channels.

We don't have any ideas at the moment. Sports is an area that is very well managed, in terms of prime time, by CMTV, I don't think it's because of sports. But it is a process of reflection that will have to be done internally, and also with our partners, and it will certainly be done.

Now, when it emerges once again, we will have the ambition to lead this market segment, whatever it may be. This is the primary message that we develop internally for all projects.

It makes sense, of course it does.

We have several titles, all of them segment leaders. Correio da Manhã, Record, Sábado, we have Negócios, we have TV Guia.

As our CEO pointed out, all operations are self-sustainable, for us it is a point of honor.

We have no plans to make any kind of move away from paper. That's out of the question.

We have no plans to make any kind of move away from paper. That is out of the question. The only overriding issue, and this is the main message I like to convey to teams and, whenever I have the opportunity and it is pertinent to speak to the market, I like to make it clear, is that you cannot manage the media with a logic that is different from the pure logic of the market.

In other words, if the revenue is expected to be 100, we cannot carry out a journalistic operation to spend 110 waiting for tomorrows to come, because tomorrows will not come.

Now, if we have an operation where the revenues we can realistically expect are 100, if we spend 90 or 95, we already have an operation that releases value and that can remunerate shareholders, remunerate all professionals appropriately and be healthy. If there is one thing, in a more permanent and lasting way, that I would like to become my message to the industry, is that the way of managing the media has to be rational.

We cannot manage the media based on voodoo economics, casino economics, or the expectation that some paradise will suddenly appear where revenues will skyrocket in this or that market niche. That will not happen. And if it does, we will soon reshape the business.

But that's not going to happen. If that doesn't happen, we have to run the news business like any other business. A business is one that has to have enough revenue to cover its costs. That's what we do at Sábado,…

If the revenue is expected to be 100, we cannot carry out a journalistic operation to spend 110 waiting for tomorrows to sing, because tomorrows will not sing.

Sábado's operations were largely based on paper-based operations. And in this sense, the management team that was in charge, led by Tiago Pinto, fulfilled its role well and the project was thriving. It was simply necessary to prepare Sábado for all these steps, for digital evolution and for integration into television, which was just taking its first steps at the time. It was with this in mind that I decided to change management and temporarily take over the management of Sábado, which I still do.

Sábado is now a self-sustaining title, with a stronger digital operation, a very thriving television operation, and a presence in prime time on Now, which it often leads over all its competitors. In other words, it is the television product that has most easily adapted to the leadership demands of the Now channel. Sábado plays a truly remarkable role on the Now channel.

Multiplatform, yes. It has to be. In other words, with the progressive decline in paper revenues, the challenge for each title is to find new formulas and new sources of revenue.

This is not the main purpose of a journalist's mission, nor of the journalist manager that I am. The main purpose is to find the best way, to practice the best possible journalism, to reach the audience that, according to the editorial statute and the DNA of each title, each of these titles has. Sábado is one of the titles that has faced this challenge best.

The grill is a process in constant evolution.

We have good protagonists in sports, international affairs and politics.

Now currently has three time slots that I think are already very well established, there is a time slot that next Monday I believe will also be established and quickly become the leader, and it has two major challenges.

Now, in general, is MediaLivre's television project that brings together content from four channels: Sábado, Negócios, Record and Máxima. The channel currently has three time slots that I think are already very well established, and there is a time slot that I believe will also be established and quickly become the leader next Monday, and it has two major challenges.

The lunchtime slot, Jornal da Hora de Almoço, which is a large generalist newspaper with a focus on international news, is a newspaper that, since the beginning of the Now channel, has always been the newspaper that we have organized most systematically and which served as a pillar when we were restructuring all the other schedules.

There is a second time slot, which is very well established, which was when we were lucky enough to attract Germano [Almeida] to our project, and the prime time slot, especially from 10:30 p.m. onwards, through his program, Guerra e Paz, is absolutely well established. In fact, when he was on the election campaign trail, one day he came into my office and said, “Impressive, you never brought down Guerra e Paz”. “Of course not, at this stage, this is basically Guerra e Paz plus 10 more”, I replied.

And the third time slot, which is very well established, is Repórter Sábado, which was on Saturdays and we have also extended to Sundays. The prime time slot on Saturdays and Sundays is very strong, very vibrant, thanks to the reports from Ana Leal's team.

Then there is an area that has become a distinctive feature of the channel, which is football. There is a news program at 11, a news program in the middle of the afternoon and then there is Hora Record, in prime time, which basically does nothing more than compete in a mirror image with the CNN schedule.

We have a cable news channel, CNN, which is the channel that has the most football programs on air. And in prime time, if we didn't have a football program, it would be harder for us to beat CNN, because CNN's football program in prime time is very strong . We have already won on some days, but our mission is to systematically consolidate that time slot.

It was moved to 9pm, and at 8pm Hora Record came on, to compete directly with CNN's sports news program, which was the only channel at the time that had it, not even CMTV had it. Only one channel had a sports program, football, at 8pm, which is the most important time. Now there are two, CNN and Now. And Now takes this option because, in order to win, it has to fight CNN's strongest weapons, and one of CNN's strongest weapons is football.

It's midnight. We hired Major General Isidro, who has caused so much controversy in recent days. We were lucky that he was on the market and, starting on Monday, he will start a new section, with his own name, with a new graphic design, with a new pivot, at midnight. I believe that this time slot will also fall to us quickly .

Then we have the challenge of starting work in the mornings very soon. I have noticed that Now's news operations do not yet start at the time they should: first thing in the morning, and we will resolve this quickly.

With a solid morning, leading sports programmes, the 1pm news with a lot of substance, the well-organised late afternoon with João Ferreira's 7pm news – which is also a newspaper that is already consolidated in what we want –, with Pedro Mourinho on the 9pm news – which is the channel's main newspaper and which also has a positive performance –, with the prime time occupied by Germano [Almeida], by the protagonists, and then the late night , midnight, with Major-General Isidro, I believe that we will have a schedule that will bring us closer to our objective, which is to lead.

I can't say that. But it has been part of our business plan since the beginning. I must say that it is happening much faster than I thought.

The approach to the competition, yes. Anyway, we passed RTP3 in 15 days. And the approach to the other channels is also happening much faster than I thought.

SIC Notícias has changed its practices a lot and improved a lot. It has increased its responsiveness, managed to reformulate and re-establish itself and I think it has become a truly stronger player in the last year.

Yes. I think that SIC Notícias has changed its practices a lot and has improved a lot. It has increased its responsiveness, managed to reformulate and re-establish itself and I think it has become a truly stronger player in the last year. This is good and challenges us, as competitors that we are, and we are happy to have stronger competitors rather than weaker ones.

RTP3, despite, let's say, the negative atmosphere that has now arisen, especially because of this controversy between the company's president and the former news director, RTP3 is actually a very strong news channel. After CMTV, it is the channel that has the strongest national network of respondents. In my office, RTP3 is also always connected, there are all four of them.

RTP3 has several problems. It has several problems with its schedule and product presentation, but they are easily solved. RTP has more media than all the competing players . The former director complains about the lack of resources, but it almost makes you want to laugh at the market , because RTP actually has a quantity of resources that cannot be compared, for example, with CMTV or Now, there is absolutely no comparison.

I'm sure that the new director, Vítor Gonçalves , will turn things around in no time. I've already instructed my team to be very careful, because RTP3 will become even stronger than it is.

CNN is an aircraft carrier for TVI . As a franchise of an international brand, that is what we know. A product made according to international standards, formats and models, in which the connection to Portuguese formats is very limited, and this at times gives it a great comparative advantage.

It is a very, very strong competitor. In Portugal, there is a competitor that managed to defeat CNN, something that I don't know if happens in other markets, which is CMTV. We think there will be two, CMTV and Now.

I'm sure that the new director, Vítor Gonçalves, will turn things around (RTP3] in no time. I've already instructed my team to be very careful, because RTP3 will become even stronger than it is.

I think we will all continue to grow . Cable TV consumption will continue to grow. We were just talking, and there is no way to hide it, about the crisis in cable TV, but in fact the biggest crisis is the crisis in generalist television channels, RTP1, SIC and TVI. These three stations will continue to decline, I have no doubt about that, for several reasons.

First of all, they have an absurd cost structure. These are three television projects whose value proposition is based on products made according to the old economy. Now, that economy has disappeared and the generalist channels continue to spend exactly the same money, or more, than they did 10, 15 and 20 years ago.

This is absurd. It's like playing with luck. This is going to end badly. In fact, in some cases, apparently, I don't have any data, nor do I want to go into that, but in some cases it's going to end badly.

I don't want to mention it, I mean in general. Generalist free-to-air channels are made according to a cost structure that was designed, drawn up and defined a decade and a half, two decades ago, and that world no longer exists . Those revenues no longer exist. That way we used to consume television no longer exists.

TVI, for example, recently tried to create a different programming schedule for each day, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, with this general director. This is absurd, it doesn't consider today's viewers.

We, all of our families, have a moment when we consume the products we are used to. The moment we decide to consume products that we are not used to consuming every day, we no longer go to the generalist channels, we go to the platforms or news programs, for some news, or because of sports, or because of security, whatever it may be.

A generalist channel trying to create a grid based on a horizontal band from Monday to Friday, at 9pm, is playing with luck. There is a set of decisions and circumstances that mean that the open-signal news channels, RTP1, SIC and TV, are truly playing with their destiny.

And this has a practical effect, it is having and will continue to have, which is the progressive degradation of the audience. Journalist channels will continue to lose audience. If we talk about the crisis of paper, we should talk much more intensely about the crisis of generalist channels.

We were talking, and rightly so, there is no way to hide it, about the paper crisis, but in truth the biggest crisis is the crisis of generalist television, RTP1, SIC and TVI.

CMTV has grown a lot since the last time we were here, a year ago.

CMTV goes as far as its viewers allow. I really like to use this phrase, because it is true. CMTV is a television language more than a project. CMTV has reformulated, and I say this and I have no credit for it, it has the previous director who invented it, Otávio [Ribeiro], and it has the teams that have successively implemented this idea, the television language.

Why is CMTV losing dozens and dozens of professionals hired by its competitors, always in a casino economy, and not shaking? Because CMTV is more than a product of Carlos, Paulo, Pedro, Sara, Zé Carlos, Daniel or whoever. CMTV is a television language.

What is this television language? It's very simple: it's the permanent predominance of news and the quest to give, report and cover live, as quickly as possible, ideally immediately.

Now, this television language has transformed itself into exactly that, a television language, that today it contaminates all channels, including generalist channels. That is why we talk about the CMTVization of news channels and generalist channels. The CMTVization of news channels and generalist channels is nothing more than the assumption that, nowadays, CMTV in Portuguese means television language.

We founded this television language. That's why we took out one piece, two pieces, 10 pieces, 20 pieces, 30 pieces, 70 pieces... the other day we were surveying the number of people, for example, that TVI has come to us to look for since it founded CNN.

A generalist channel trying to create a grid based on a horizontal band from Monday to Friday, at nine o'clock at night, is playing with luck.

There were many, many, many. It's not worth it, because it's shocking. If I say the number, it will seem like a lie. But no, it's true and it's very high. And, in fact, CMTV doesn't change anything. It's this form of television language that I think, sooner or later, will end up being the most watched channel in Portugal. When? I can't say. But we will continue to grow.

The viewer is the one who will decide. Increasingly, television channels, and due to the many requests that we all have, regardless of the family structure and the entertainment configuration that each of us has in our private lives, these sources have multiplied. But we always go to television, at least when we have an impulse, which is the impulse of the news. That is CMTV.

Now is a different channel, with a different type of information, in which there is room for the protagonists and the opinions of the protagonists, there is room for reflection and there is room for some type of information that is not so immediate, in the same way as SIC Notícias, RTP3 or CNN.

If it's a local event, viewers prefer CMTV. If it's a football event, viewers prefer CMTV. International, economic, luxury, major reporting, especially through the Sábado brand, these are Now's main focuses.

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