The Argentine information environment is in turmoil, with the newly elected president pledging to privatise or close the already weak public media and to eliminate all government advertising. Faced with rampant inflation, this has piled further pressure on privately owned news outlets. Yet interest and trust in news remains low.

The impact of libertarian President Javier Milei’s hostility to the media is being felt throughout Argentina’s news industry, something which is underscored by extensive downsizing in both public and private outfits. In early 2024, more than 700 news workers were laid off when the government shut down the state-owned news agency Télam, 600 were laid off from public broadcaster Radio Nacional, and 250 from América TV, one of the four most important private television stations.

Milei emerged first as an outsider candidate, becoming president in 2023. Following a playbook established by Trump in the US and Bolsonaro in Brazil, he became notorious for challenging critical journalists, an approach which has continued into office. Reporters without Borders (RSF) said his ‘readiness to designate a sector of the media as enemies of his government … is an alarm signal for journalism in Argentina’.

The president is a heavy user of social media, sometimes reposting on X hundreds of times a day. ‘I use social media at breakfast, lunch and at night,’ he told an interviewer. As for his fellow Argentinians, in our survey, 37% of respondents said they got news on Facebook, compared to 46% in 2023. News consumption remained stable on Instagram and WhatsApp, where a third of respondents report getting information, but has increased significantly on YouTube (+4 points) and TikTok (+4).

The decline in interest in news was not reversed by the heated presidential election, in which opposing campaigns used images generated by AI to present their candidates in imaginary flattering settings. The percentage of people who said they were very or extremely interested in news has remained low at 45% compared to 77% in 2017.

Decades-old newspaper Ámbito Financiero discontinued its print edition, while circulation of other dailies has continued to fall. Clarín, the top-selling print newspaper in Argentina, reported an average daily print circulation of 51,000 by the end of 2023, down from 65,000 the previous year,¹ and far from the average 250,000 circulation it had only a decade ago. Although the digital subscription base grew from 550,000 to 712,000, dwarfing print, the paper still earns much more from print than digital. Clarín's main competitor, La Nación, saw its digital subscriber base remain relatively stable at 378,000.²

Online news outlets tend to opt for either subscription or voluntary contributions. While legacy print media, such as Perfil and El Cronista have maintained their paywalls, digital natives such as Cenital and elDiarioAR have relied on a membership system. By the end of 2023, Cenital was earning more than half its operating revenue from voluntary payments.³

The two top online news outlets in early 2024 were Infobae, accessed by four out of ten (40%) respondents, and the website and apps of cable news channel TN, which 30% report having visited. Neither have subscription programmes. Although willingness to pay for news has increased by 3 percentage points to 15%, half of subscribers report paying less than the equivalent of two US dollars each month.

Broadcast television viewership continued its decline, with 18.4% average ratings spread across all stations during 2023, down from 19.6% the previous year.⁴ Online video has increased its relevance as a source of news according to our survey: two-thirds of the audience access short-form videos for information at least weekly, mainly on social media platforms. Online live video, which relies on a mix of news and entertainment, surged during the pandemic and has increased its popularity and sophistication. Luzu TV started as an online talk show and has grown into a YouTube channel with 1.33 million subscribers. It streams a variety of programmes from 8am until 11pm. Its main competitor, Olga, which interviewed football star Lionel Messi in 2023, now has over half a million subscribers. It features radio and television personalities in its daily programming. Many legacy radio stations have taken up the video streaming format, transmitting their programming on YouTube as well as on their traditional broadcast formats.  

The appearance of online live video could reflect audience weariness of broadcast and cable television news, which are mostly owned by large private conglomerates and have tended to reflect the country’s political polarisation. President Milei’s rise to power has not appeared to challenge that, since print, radio, and television were mostly clearly divided either in support or in opposition camps.

Eugenia Mitchelstein and Pablo J. Boczkowski
Center for the Study of Media and Society, Argentina (MESO)

The percentage of members of the audience that trust the media in general has remained low, at 30%, while 36% say they trust the news sources they use. Argentina is among the countries with lowest levels of media trust. However, individual brands such as Telefé Noticias and TN have continued to be perceived as trustworthy for at least half of the respondents.

Footnotes