Television in Portugal

Television in Portugal was introduced in 1956 (test broadcasts) by Radiotelevisão Portuguesa (now named Rádio e Televisão de Portugal), which held the nationwide television monopoly until late 1992. Regular broadcasting was introduced on March 7, 1957. Colour transmissions were introduced on March 10, 1980.

Digital terrestrial television (DTT) was introduced at a very late stage when compared to other countries in Europe and with limited channels, and according to the European Audiovisual Observatory it occupies the last place in 34 European countries with the weakest offer on digital terrestrial television. In such a way that most Portuguese are subscribers of cable (HFC) or IPTV (DSL or FTTH) platforms, in percentages higher than in the rest of Europe and these platforms are well developed with a large number of channels. During the transition from analog to DTT, subscription-based television services experiences a 10% increase and reached 72.5% of homes in 2012. Regional and local television is also limited. Portuguese television is regulated by the Entidade Reguladora para a Comunicação Social (ERC). In 2016, TVI was the ratings leader with 21.5% share while SIC, RTP1 and RTP2 had 17.6%, 13.7% and 2.0%, respectively.

On March 7, 1957 public broadcaster Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP) began broadcasting RTP1, the first television channel in the country. A second RTP channel, RTP2, started broadcasting on December 25, 1968. Private commercial channels were launched in the early 1990s, with SIC on October 6, 1992 and TVI on February 20, 1993.

Analog broadcasts in Portugal was discontinued on April 26, 2012. There are eight free-to-air channels on Portuguese terrestrial TV: 6 are owned by the public service broadcaster RTP (with 2 being regional channels that broadcast in FTA only in the Madeira and Azores Autonomous Regions), 2 are from private broadcasters (SIC and TVI) and 1 is owned by the Aseembly of the Republic and broadcasts parliamentary sessions (like BBC Parliament).

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