After years without newsstands, Alcoutim and three other municipalities in Portugal will see the return of newspaper and magazine sales starting next month
Starting in November, residents of Alcoutim (Algarve), Vimioso and Freixo de Espada à Cinta (Bragança), and Marvão (Portalegre) will once again have access to newspapers and magazines locally through the opening of newsagent’s shops, thanks to an initiative announced by Pedro Duarte, the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs.
This move is part of a broader government plan to support media access in underserved regions of Portugal, addressing what Duarte described as a “dangerous trend” of information inaccessibility for many citizens.
The announcement came during a parliamentary committee on Culture, Communication, Youth, and Sports, where Duarte discussed several elements of the government’s Action Plan for Social Communication, a strategy including 30 measures aimed at bolstering Portugal’s media landscape. Among these is a focus on strengthening distribution networks, particularly in regions currently without any points of sale for print media. The plan aims to prevent a further decline in media access, with Duarte warning that without intervention, up to 15 or 20 additional municipalities could lose their local news access within months.
The goal is to make sure residents in these municipalities, which tend to have an aging population which may not have easy access to the internet, can at least have access to print media.
According to Duarte, the issue had been worsening for four years, and it was just this week that the final protocol was signed to reestablish sales points in these four municipalities.
The Action Plan for Social Communication also includes measures to strengthen the media sector, with one major provision being the gradual phase-out of advertising on the public broadcaster RTP by 2027.
