Lisbon, June 17, 2025 (Lusa) - Only 10% of Portuguese people say they have paid for online news, with Portugal having one of the lowest rates among 48 countries analysed by the Digital News Report (DNR), confirming a scenario of stagnation.
“Portugal continues to have one of the lowest rates of payment for digital news among the 48 countries analysed by the Digital News Report, with only 10% of Portuguese people saying they paid for online news in the previous year - a drop of 2 percentage points (pp.) compared to 2024,” according to the Digital News Report Portugal 2025 (DNRPT25) released on Tuesday.
This trend “confirms the stagnation observed in recent years, in line with what is also seen in several European markets, including countries traditionally stronger in digital subscriptions, such as Sweden and Norway,” the report reads.
The 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.
Overall, “payment for digital news stands at 18%, slightly above 2024 (+1 pp.), with Switzerland standing out as one of the few exceptions to this stable trend, recording significant growth (+5 pp.).”
In Portugal, one third opt for a continuous subscription to digital news, “although the proportion of those who access news through services that include this content indirectly (33%) has increased”.
Payment for combined print and digital packages also grew (23%), as did single payments per article or edition (20%).
“Donations to support news brands or services remain residual (10%), although they have increased slightly,” the report says.
More than two-thirds (70%) of those who pay for digital news “maintain this commitment on an ongoing basis, suggesting loyalty among the existing subscriber base”.
However, the potential for expansion remains limited: “66% of non-payers say they are not interested in any of the conditions proposed for paying for online news, which reinforces the persistence of cultural and economic barriers to the digital monetisation of news in Portugal”.
Expresso and Público “stand out as the brands that Portuguese people subscribe to most regularly (Expresso significantly, with 39% compared to 26% for Público), followed by Observador (19%) and Correio da Manhã (18%)”, according to the DNRPT25, although this indicator is not intended to be a reliable source on performance in paid digital circulation.
In this year’s report, television continues to be the “principal news source in Portugal, used by 67% of the Portuguese population and the main source for 53% of the public”.
And although the Internet is on a par with television in terms of general use (67%), “only 19% point to it as their main source, confirming the continuing hegemony of television, especially among older people”.
Among young people aged 18–24, there is a propensity for digital: more than a quarter (26%) favour the Internet (without social networks) and 24% favour social networks as their main means of accessing news.
Radio and the press “continue to play more marginal roles (7% and 4%, respectively), while podcasts and chatbots introduced for the first time in the 2025 survey, reveal residual use as a main source (1% each), although 6% and 4% say they used these options in the previous week, respectively.”
Search engines (28%) lead as the gateway to news, followed by direct access to websites (19%) and social media (20%), “a pattern that contrasts with the global scenario, where social media leads”.
With fieldwork carried out by YouGov, the project surveyed around 97,000 Internet users in 48 countries worldwide in 2025. In Portugal, 2,012 individuals were surveyed.
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