About 20 million Brazilians have access to the Internet.
Brazil publishes more daily newspapers than Mexico, Germany,
or Russia. It also has the fourth largest TV network in the world.
Journalists from Brazil are protected from censorship by the Constitution.
Still being a journalist in Brazil is a hazardous profession.

Jamie Popp

Brazilian journalists are protected under the constitution from censorship and enjoy the rights of a free press of sorts. Unfortunately, many journalists who cover corruption the risk of death threats, injury and in some cases death for their efforts. The Inter-American Press Association and the Justice Ministry have been investigating cases of attacks on journalists in Brazil, according to U.S. State Department.

The government controls radio and television licensing in Brazil, which are manipulated by politicians who own various stations and newspapers. This dynamic makes it difficult to tell who controls which media outlet and how many publications or stations. Additionally, political candidates have free use of airtime on both television and radio broadcast channels during election campaigns.

Under the 1967 Press Law, journalists receive stiff penalties (prison time) for libel charges. Organizations such as the National Federation of Journalists and the National Newspaper Association are working to change the laws that restrict journalists' rights to report on corruption and protect journalists from excessive sentences and publications from fines. Prosecutors moved to restrict press access to detainee information in 1988.

In a move opposed by the Union of Broadcasting Networks for Democracy, the senate passed a bill in 1998 that would further regulate frequencies and owners of community radio stations. Later, in 1999, government officials moved closer towards relieving imprisonment sentences for journalists charged with libel. However, while advances were made to protect journalists in 2000, Congress upheld a bill restricting the amount of information that a civil servant could reveal to the press and a Federal judge closed 2,000 community radio stations.

According to the World Press Freedom Review, Brazilian journalists experience more freedom in larger cities like Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, but large news organizations such as Agência Globo and Agência JB (in Rio de Janeiro); Agência ANDA and Empresa Brasileira de Notícias (in Brasília); and Agência Folha and Agência Estado (in São Paulo) suffered from government control and fines in 2001.

According to Victor Gentilli, a professor who published a study on media industry consolidation in the 70s, due to an authoritarian regime, journalists reporting for respected newspapers such as O Estado de S. Paulo and Folha de S. Paulo and national magazines such as Veja and Isto É were censored and persecuted for exposing corruption. This caused a surge in alternative media and an increase in the use of the Internet throughout the country.

Internet

In less than a decade the Internet in Brazil has surpassed classrooms and research facilities as a way to reach millions of users. The number of people worldwide who are linked to the Internet in 2005 is expected to reach close to 400 million accounting for more than $620 billion in Internet commerce, according to Brazil's Ministry of Science and Technology. The Internet was offered to the general public in Brazil in 1995 by the Ministry and more than 19.7 million Brazilian use the service today.

According to Nielsen-NetRAtings, only in 2002, the number of Brazilians with access to the Internet grew by 2.1 million. The study says that 45 percent of people 16 year old or older living in a house with a telephone have access to the Internet. 14.3 million Brazilians access the Internet from home.

In a presentation given at a conference in Milan in January 2002, Juarez Quadros do Nascimento, then Ministry of Communications executive secretary, discussed the changes in the telecommunications industry since the privatization and nationwide service in Brazil leading to a 19 percent growth rate in software sales over the last decade. According to Nascimento, the information technology sector grew by 13 percent annually from 1993 to 1999 with help from legislators and the Brazilian National Bank for Social and Economic Development.

The convergence of technology, software and service price drops and Internet growth creates a hot bed for domain name registration. Brazilians registered more than 445 million domain names in 2001 and the number increases by almost five percent monthly. Experts predict that by 2006, nearly 42 million users from all classes will be logging in to do business on-line. Brazil is the largest Web site host of all countries in Latin America, according to the Ministry of Communication. Nascimento said sales over the Internet would likely reach $2.5 million by 2003. More than 90 percent of the population currently uses electronic services provided by the government to vote and file taxes although small-to-medium businesses remain in the paper age.

Telecommunications

According to statistics published by the national phone service ANATEL, 45.9 million Brazilians owned telephones and 27.8 million carried cell phones. In the face of international competition from Portugal, Italy, France and the United States, ANATEL has been working on a plan to lower the costs of owning a local telephone line (in 1997 residents in larger cities such as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo paid $3,000 for the line alone, according to the Library of Congress). Nascimento predicts national service costs and installation time will decrease substantially by 2005.

Today, Brazil has approximately 160 telephones per 1,000 people. The number may be small when compared to developed countries, but it is very significant in the Latin American context.

Newspapers

In 2001, close to 2,000 newspapers were in circulation of which 74 daily papers accounted for 3.9 million papers distributed to readers, according to the National Newspaper Association. The number of daily newspapers in circulation dropped by more than 25 percent in 2002. Still Brazil prints more daily newspapers than Russia, Mexico or Germany. Although actual revenues did not change significantly from 2001 to 2002, the association attributes the drop off in circulation for some newspapers to lack of advertising from Internet and telecommunication companies.

According to Grupo de Midia, "In the beginning of 2001, five large newspapers in the country—Correio Braziliense, Estado de Minas, O Estado de S. Paulo, O Globo and Zero Hora—got together and promoted … Anúncio Brasil (Ad Brazil)." According to the Circulation Verification Institute, 1.3 million copies were then distributed as inserts in Sunday newspapers.

Magazines

According to the International Federation of the Periodical Press, in 1998 over 1,500 different magazines were published in Brazil. The decrease in advertising that newspapers experienced in the last year also affected the magazine market. In 2002, Editora Abril reported a two percent decrease in magazine revenue in their first quarter earnings statement over the previous year and more than a five percent drop in advertising support.

Unlike newspaper markets, magazines experienced a decline in advertising from cigarette makers banned from selling their brands on billboards and in print publications in 2001. According to the Institute for Circulation Verification in Brazil, the number of subscribers also decreased by four percent. The average magazine subscriber in Brazil is a woman in her mid-to-late 20s and upper-level income bracket. The largest magazine publishing companies, Editora Abril (78 different magazines) and Editora Globo (29 different magazines), represent a fraction of more than 1,400 magazines sold in Brazil today.

Television

About nine tenths of Brazilian households own a television set. More than 300 television stations and 3,000 radio stations are supervised by the National Department of Telecommunications, a branch of the Ministry of Communications. Although there are twenty government and institutionally run channels, the largest television networks include Rede Globo de Televisão (Globo), Rede Bandeirantes, Sistema Brasileiro de Televisão (SBT), and TV Record, according to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C..

Signals from the national networks go through government run satellites and the Ministry of Communication is currently working with the government officials to bring digital television to 50 million viewers in the country. TV Globo is the fourth largest television network in the world—behind American TV networks CBS, ABC and NB—and earns more than $30 million annually from selling its soap operas to 68 different countries.

TV Educativa is an educational networks funded by the state, but it reaches only those living close to a few major cities like São Paulo and Rio. Cable TV was practically unknown before the late 1990s, but since then it has been expanding rapidly.

Radio

Radio stations (including short wave) broadcast throughout the country are controlled and licensed by the government. Nearly half of the population has a radio, according to World Almanac statistics. Brazil also operates a national radio service which is broadcast to Europe, the Americas and Africa and parts of Asia. Radiobrás, the Brazilian Radio Broadcasting Company, is an advocate for radio technology in the country. A few radio stations in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Recife are now broadcast over the Internet for worldwide listening.

In 2000, the government took steps to allow international access to large private media companies. According to Bloomberg, the Brazilian media giants Editora Abril, Agência Globo, Agência Estado and Folha, want international ownership in their companies to help get out of debt and allow units of the company to be traded publicly. The latest change in the industry also should help smaller radio stations suffering financially.

According to International Federation of Periodical Press, media ownership regulations in Brazil allow for foreign ownership, concentration and a capital structure. However, cross media ownership is prohibited. International investment in the media industry includes Cisneros Group of Companies, one of the largest media companies in the Americas, which began investing heavily in the Brazilian market in May 2000 after they teamed up with AOL Latin America (to control 50 percent of the company) and opened a technology investment company in Brazil.

Jamie Popp is a freelance Brazilian Portuguese translator. As a former exchange student in Brazil, a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate with a degree in Brazilian Literature and a frequent traveler to Brazil, her background is extensive in the language and culture. You can write the author at poppsun@aol.com  

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