The Regional Secretary for Parliamentary Affairs and Communities, Paulo Estêvão, has announced that two million euros will be invested in the Azorean private media next year.
“By the end of the legislature, support for the media will reach 2.6 million euros,” he added in an interview with Correio dos Açores.
Paulo Estêvão stressed that this is “a very significant increase in support,” considering that “last year, support was around 680,000 euros.”
According to the minister, “there will be support for the media itself, based on the previous parameters, but increased and with some specific and punctual novelties.”
“At the same time, we’re going to develop the media subscription program,” with “a very significant distribution of physical newspapers to all schools in the Azores and also to private social solidarity institutions, as well as other public entities,” he said.
In addition, “there will be a third pillar, which is institutional advertising, which will make it possible to provide very significant support to the media,” he added.
“So there will be three pillars: the media support program itself, a media subscription program and an institutional advertising program. These are the three pillars through which this set of support will be distributed, which will add up to around two million euros by 2025,” he said.
Paulo Estevão said that the new media support program will be submitted to the Azores Legislative Assembly this year, “that is, before the budget is approved in November.”
“The idea is that it can be presented between September and October. It will also depend on the analysis in the parliamentary committees, but it must be approved by October, because then it’s November and in that month we want to consider this set of expenses in the Annual Plan,” he said.
“I believe that we will come out of this process with much more substantial support for the media, which will allow them to have much greater civic intervention and greater circulation of information,” he stressed.
According to Paulo Estêvão, the Promedia program will continue this year.
“We’re planning to make the payments this June. In the next program, to be implemented in 2025, it will be greatly increased in many areas,” he said.

in Diário Insular-José Lourenço, director

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