The tender, foreseen in the Action Plan for Social Communication, will have an annual value of €1 million and will be divided into two lots: one for the North and Central regions and another for Lisbon and the Tagus Valley, Alentejo and Algarve.

With this model, the government intends to encourage the entry of new operators and promote competition in the distribution sector through a measure aimed at ensuring the regular arrival of publications across the continental territory and to avoid "news deserts".

The executive justified the public intervention with the fall in sales in banks and the population in the interior of the country, factors that have affected the sustainability of the daily distribution of newspapers and led to the concentration of the activity in a single operator.

According to the Government, the preparation of the tender was “especially complex” due to the existence of a single incumbent in the market and “serious problems” in the information shared by that operator, a situation that the operator “has come to recognise”.

The support model is based on two pillars: direct financing of distribution through this tender and support for the operation of points of sale in low-density territories, in partnership with the municipalities.

To this end, a model agreement is under discussion between Portugal MediaLab and the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities.

The financial support was calculated based on the activity's costs, territorial differences, and the evolution of expenses such as fuel and salaries.

In this sense, the tender provides support for distribution in 96 low-density municipalities, with different levels of co-participation according to the population and population density of each municipality, with the 26 Portuguese municipalities with a population of less than five thousand inhabitants and less than 18 people per square kilometre receiving the highest co-participation (125%).

Among the obligations of the future contractor is the guarantee of at least one point of sale in each municipality of the continent, the non-discriminatory transport of different newspapers, and the monthly provision of detailed information on sales, costs, and points of sale.

The tender notice and specifications will be published on 2 June in the Diário da República and the Official Journal of the Union, with a 60-day period for the submission of proposals.