CNN Portugal starts this Monday. What is already known about the new channel – Observer
Pedro Santos Guerreiro (TVI, ex-director of Expresso) takes over as executive director of CNN digital and Frederico Roque de Pinho (TVI) is executive director of the channel. The main editors are José Carlos Araújo (TVI), Paulo Magalhães (TVI, press advisor to President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa in his first term), Raquel Matos Cruz (TVI), Pedro Pinheiro (ex-TSF) and Rui Loura (ex- SuperSport, South African sports channel network).
In terms of television, the channel wants to give “priority to news, whether national or international issues”, which means direct news on last-minute issues. Rehearsals at the CNN Portugal studio in Queluz de Baixo, outskirts of Lisbon, designates the 25th of October. The studio has 600 square meters and comprises seven different ones, all created in partnership with CNN International. In the online aspect, “an operation will not be a mirror of the television operation”, rather it will feature “autonomous website, application, newsletters, podcasts, social networks and multimedia sections”. Its presence on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram has been a reality for several weeks now.
Resident commentators will appear in both sides – the list is extensive, many of them transiting from TVI24. Adalberto Campos Fernandes, Ana Catarina Mendes, Ana Pedrosa Augusto, António Costa, António Lobo Xavier, Helena Matos, Bernardino Soares, Francisco Seixas da Costa, Helena Ferro de Gouveia, José Pacheco Pereira, Miguel Pinheiro, Mafalda Anjos, Sebastião Bugalho, Maria João Avillez and Sérgio Sousa Pinto.
“Novo Dia” is the morning program that starts broadcasting this Monday. It will air from Monday to Friday, at 6:30 am, live from Lisbon and Porto, with journalists André Neto de Oliveira, Diana Bouça-Nova and Isaura Quevedo. “We are not going to repeat in the morning the news that people saw the night before”, explained Pedro Pinheiro, editor of the program, on the Media Capital website. “The mornings of CNN Portugal will put new themes on the table, the most important issues. The news you learn from the day before will have a different development, will be analyzed”, he added.
During the morning, viewers can see “CNN Hoje”, with Ana Guedes Rodrigues. Cátia Nobre and José Carlos Araújo appear on the small screen at midday. João Póvoa Marinheiro is the pivot at 18:00. Ana Sofia Cardoso and Paulo Magalhães lead the broadcast after 10 pm.
At night, at 9 pm, the “Jornal da CNN” appears, defined as the channel’s “great information space”, with an alternate presentation by Judite Sousa and Júlio Magalhães, two former faces of TVI (and, before that, of RTP ) that has returned to the screen and are back together. On Mondays, journalist Rui Santos (ex-SIC) will analyze the football weekend. In the area of sports, the other strong names are Catarina Cardoso, Paulo Pereira, Henrique Mateus, Andreia Palmeirim and Joaquim Sousa Martins.
On Saturdays, Pedro Benevides stands out in the program “Fontes Bem Informadas”, at 11:00 am. Newspapers from 9 pm on Saturday and Sunday have Cristina Reyna as presenter.
According to Media Capital, CNN Portugal will have an “extended network of national correspondents from the north to the south of the country, including islands”, many of whom already work for TVI. On the table are collaborations with television (online) and regional newspapers, in the style of the network that the American CNN created with local television stations in the USA – and to remind the strong regional implantation that CMTV has today.
Internationally, the correspondents Luís Costa Ribas (USA), Pedro Moreira (Brussels, with coverage of other countries in central Europe) and Filipe Santos Costa (Tokyo, with coverage of Asia) are certain. A journalist is also planned in Luanda, responsible for covering Portuguese-speaking Africa. In addition, the channel will feature several newcomer journalists, chosen through a recruitment launched in July and which should compete with no fewer than four thousand people.
As for the programs of the motherhouse that the Portuguese can now watch with a chosen translation, “The Admirable World with Richard Quest” (“Quest’s World of Wonder”), “The Chef and the City” (“Culinary Journeys”) or “ Frequent Flyer”(“Business Traveler”).
CNN (Cable News Network) was the first television station in the world to broadcast informational content only 24 hours a day. It was launched in the USA on June 1, 1980 by the Ted Turner gym, which gradually managed to transform it into a world reference, especially after the live broadcast of the first Gulf War, in 1991.
Based in Atlanta (Georgia, east coast of the USA), a station made famous reporters like Christiane Amanpour, Peter Arnett, Jim Clancy or Wolf Blitzer, and presenters like Larry King, Bernard Shaw or Richard Quest.
In addition to CNN Internacional, which appeared in 1985 and now arrives at Portuguese homes by cable, the station created a Spanish-language channel in 1997 and licensed the brand for a version in Brazil, which is on the air in March of last year. CNN was acquired in 1997 by the Time Warner group, now WarnerMedia, and is now the third most watched news channel in the US, behind Fox News and MSNBC.
The arrival in Portugal comes at a time when there is talk of a new wave of the coronavirus pandemic and a little over two months of legislative changes, scheduled for January 30th. There are already predominantly informative channels on the market: SIC Notícias, RTP3, CMTV. In a statement to Público newspaper last week, Nuno Santos said that CNN Portugal “is another reality” and that it will bet on a literate public with purchasing power, from the age of 25 onwards.