Network of Theaters and Cineteatros needs “appropriate working conditions”

As conclusions are in the final report of the impact study to RTCP, made by the University of Aveiro at the request of the Directorate-General of Arts (DGartes) and released on Wednesday by this body.

DGArtes requested, in 2024, a study on the operation and existence of RTCP and revealed, last December, a preliminary report with some conclusions, namely that this network is a “consolidated ecosystem”, with “regional and institutional asymmetries”.

In the final report released now, researchers at the University of Aveiro point out several recommendations to the weaknesses found in this network, created in 2021, managed by DGArtes and which, in 2025, had 103 accredited cultural equipment.

Among other things, a warning is made about working conditions in accredited cultural equipment: “The robustness of RTCP depends on technicians, producers, programmers, communicators, artists and mediators with adequate working conditions.”.

“ Undersized teams, unstable links, accumulation of functions, insufficient remuneration, excessive hours and professional wear can limit the capacity for cooperation, the quality of programming and institutional continuity of the Network ", reads in the document.

Researchers suggest that there should be more information on the size of the teams, contractual links, remuneration, “accumulating functions, workloads, rest, training, communication, production, mediation and mental health”.

“ This information should allow identifying risks of precariousness, undersizing and professional wear”, remember.

According to the impact study, RTCP’s governance model is done at various levels, involving central and local administration, but it is asymmetric; and artistic structures, which work with and for cultural equipment, “participate more indirectly in their formal governance”.

Researchers stress that the operation of RTCP “requires a coordinating entity with permanent capacity to monitor, facilitate, communicate, evaluate, support and learn from the network”.

“Permanent administrative capacity, intermediation instruments, differentiated criteria, support for unfunded accredited persons, interregional movement mechanisms and working conditions compatible with policy ambition are lacking”, the report reads.

According to the University of Aveiro, RTCP “must avoid becoming a closed circuit of recurrent entities”, of which it hosts cultural programming, and must open itself to “new voices, less programmed disciplines, emerging artists and experimental formats”.

The sustainability of the network “also requires deepening cultural mediation” with the public, underlines the authors of the study, understanding that theaters and cinemas should not only have cultural offer; they should be able to “create culturally significant relations” with spectators.

In September 2024, the Director-General of the Arts, Américo Rodrigues, revealed to Lusa the intention of assessing the social, economic and artistic impact of RTCP, to see if this “public policy mechanism in the area of culture” was working well and what could be done to improve it.

“There are a number of goals of the network that have to do with the correction of asymmetries, to contribute to a true cultural democracy in the country, and we now have to see, analyze, study, if that is working and what we can do to improve,” said Américo Rodrigues, at the time, in statements to Lusa.

The creation of RTCP was approved in Parliament in 2019, but the processes of accreditation of cultural equipment began only in 2021, currently having 103 acceding spaces.

The third multiannual programme to support programming for RTCP cultural equipment, with an allocation of EUR 23.2 million to be implemented between 2026 and 2029, will be allocated to 42 cultural equipment, according to a decision announced by DGArtes last April.