"Press" brands are the most effective at attracting digital users

" Measuring the digitalization of a brand is always a complex and abstract exercise" given that each media outlet has its own strategy, points out the researcher from OberCom and Iberifier, in an interview with Lusa, regarding the digitalization index contained in the Digital News Report Portugal 2025 (DNRPT25).

"Here, what we try to do within the scope of the Digital News Report is to create a kind of comparative framework based on the indicator in which we measure the digitalization of news brands in Portugal" and verify the number of people who have contact with the brand in the digital format compared to the number of people who have contact with the brand in the traditional format (print, television and radio), he says.

The conclusion is that, "structurally and over the years [...] the brands that are currently digital and that have a press format [...] are those that have the best digitalization rate", he highlights.

For example, brands like Público or A Bola "have around 15 digital users for every 10 analogue users, therefore on paper, whereas, for example, brands like SIC or SIC Notícias or TVI have five digital users for every traditional user".

It is observed that the "transition to digital by press brands is much faster" and has been "more successful than that of others".

In this sense, "press brands are much more effective at attracting digital users, which doesn't mean they're effective at monetizing the attention they're attracting," warns Miguel Paisana.

"This is the great dilemma of the press," he continues, recalling that "only 10% of Portuguese people say they are willing to pay for news or pay for online news" and the proportion who say they might pay is also quite small.

When the Internet began to become widespread in Portugal, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, press brands were the first to transition to digital.

After 25 years, "the press sector is much more consolidated in the digital world compared to television and radio."

In the case of Público and Expresso, for example, the recent digital strategy shows a focus on audio and podcasts: "these brands are creating sound universes within their own brands, to consolidate their digital offering," he highlights.

Among exclusively digital brands, Notícias ao Minuto stands out, reaching 25% of respondents in the previous week and with 14% stating more regular consumption , followed by Observador (with 17% weekly use and 8% frequent consumption, followed by the Sapo portal (with 16% and 9%, respectively), according to DNRPT25.

These brands "were designed for digital and, therefore, do very well in the digital world," the researcher emphasizes.

Observador is a brand that "independently produces its own content," while Sapo offers "a lot of content produced by Lusa and other news brands, such as Renascença and SIC Notícias," and "has also found a way to lend journalistic legitimacy to its project," he notes. Notícias ao Minuto, meanwhile, "has a very immediate approach to news consumption, which is condensed and delivered on social media."

The researcher highlights the particularity of the Sapo portal, which "continues to be a fundamental vehicle for Portuguese internet users to interact with what is online", noting that there is only one similar case in Europe, in Poland.

DNRPT25 has been produced annually by OberCom - Observatório da Comunicação since 2015, published alongside the global report by RISJ - Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom.

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