Iniciativa Liberal Demands an Independent Audit of RTP and Maps a Path to Full Privatisation — Mariana Leitão's Party Frames the State Broadcaster Around Legitimacy, Efficiency and Competitive-Neutrality Failings

Iniciativa Liberal (Liberal Initiative) opened a new front against state-owned media on Monday, formally asking the Government to commission an urgent, independent audit of RTP (Rádio e Televisão de Portugal, the public broadcaster) and to begin charting a route to full privatisation. The proposal, tabled on 22 June, is the clearest signal yet that the liberal bench intends to keep the future of public-service broadcasting on the parliamentary agenda rather than let it drift.

The audit the party wants is deliberately exhaustive. It would span the financial, patrimonial (asset), operational, fiscal and legal dimensions of the company, reaching across every RTP entity — each television channel, each radio station, each digital platform and each regional structure — alongside its real-estate holdings, contracts and contingent liabilities. Crucially, Iniciativa Liberal wants the accounts disaggregated business unit by business unit, so that the cost and performance of individual channels can be read in isolation rather than buried in a single consolidated statement. The party also singles out the valuation of RTP's vast audiovisual archive, arguing that its accounting must be clarified before anyone can put a credible market price on the group.

Three problems, one prescription

The case for selling rests on what the party frames as three structural problems. The first is legitimacy: in a mature, competitive audiovisual market, it argues, the State should not simultaneously own, finance and directly manage a media group, and it is unfair to compel every citizen to bankroll channels that many never watch. The second is efficiency, with the party pointing to what it calls low profitability, weak cash generation and accumulated value destruction. The third is competitive neutrality: under the present model, in its words, the State carries the risk, citizens foot the bill, and the company still lacks the tools to compete on equal terms with private rivals.

RTP is funded chiefly through the contribuição para o audiovisual (audiovisual contribution), a levy collected on household electricity bills, topped up by advertising revenue and state transfers — an arrangement Iniciativa Liberal contends distorts the wider media market.

The proposal lands in crowded political water. Chega (Enough), the largest opposition party, has signalled its own intention to file a privatisation bill in September, meaning two distinct forces are now circling the same target from different directions. For the minority centre-right Government, that creates an awkward dynamic: it is broadly sympathetic to leaner state ownership, yet dismantling a public broadcaster is legally intricate, touches European rules on public-service media and state aid, and would almost certainly require fresh legislation and a parliamentary majority that does not obviously exist.

For now, the demand is for transparency before transformation. An independent audit, Iniciativa Liberal argues, is the precondition for any honest debate about RTP's value, its mission and its place in a Portuguese media landscape where streaming platforms and private broadcasters have rewritten the rules. Whether the Government commissions one — and whether it likes what such an audit might reveal — is the question that will shape the autumn.