SIC Internacional

About SIC Internacional

Overview

SIC Internacional is the international channel of SIC, Portugal's leading commercial television broadcaster, owned by the Impresa media group. Officially launched on 17 September 1997 in France, it expanded throughout the world to serve Portuguese migrant communities, featuring programming from SIC and its sister channels: news, entertainment, talk shows and sports, including exclusive coverage of Portuguese Liga football matches.

The channel broadcasts across Europe, North America, South America, Africa and Australia via cable and satellite, reaching Portuguese communities in Angola, Mozambique, South Africa, France, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Brazil, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In Europe it is available by satellite, serving the Portuguese diaspora including the large community in the United Kingdom.

Launch in 1997

SIC Internacional officially launched in September 1997, beginning in France, the European country with one of the largest Portuguese immigrant communities. From its French base it expanded throughout the world, following the global Portuguese diaspora.

The launch came five years after SIC itself began broadcasting in October 1992 as Portugal's first private television channel, breaking the monopoly of the state broadcaster RTP. The international channel extended SIC's commercial success to Portuguese viewers abroad. France was the natural starting point: its Portuguese community, built by decades of emigration, was among the largest in Europe.

SIC and Impresa

SIC, Sociedade Independente de Televisão, was founded in 1992 by a consortium led by Francisco Pinto Balsemão, with backing from the Expresso newspaper group and Brazil's Rede Globo. It quickly became Portugal's most-watched channel, built on news, telenovelas and entertainment.

SIC Internacional is part of the SIC channel family, which includes the news channel SIC Notícias, the youth entertainment channel SIC Radical, the women's channel SIC Mulher, the children's channel SIC K and the celebrity channel SIC Caras. The international channel draws its programming from across this portfolio.

Programming

SIC Internacional's schedules feature news, entertainment, talk shows and sports from SIC and its sister channels. Its news output keeps the diaspora informed about Portugal, while its entertainment schedules deliver the telenovelas, variety shows and reality programmes that dominate Portuguese television.

A signature offering is the channel's exclusive coverage of Portuguese Liga football matches, bringing the Primeira Liga to Portuguese fans abroad. Football is central to the channel's appeal, giving emigrants a weekly connection to the clubs and rivalries of home.

SIC's news operation, built on the pioneering journalism of its early years, provides the channel's news backbone. The evening bulletins and current affairs programmes keep the diaspora informed about Portuguese politics, economy and society, a valued service for emigrants who want trusted news from home.

Expansion across continents

The channel's global expansion followed the routes of Portuguese emigration. It began broadcasting to southern Africa in August 2000, serving the Portuguese communities of Angola, Mozambique and South Africa. On 2 August 2004 it began broadcasting to Brazil on the NET and Sky platforms, where the two providers controversially replaced RTP Internacional.

In North America, SIC Internacional is available via local Portuguese television channels: in Canada it is relayed via FPTV and in the United States via SPT TV, with the relays running alongside local productions aimed at the communities in each country. The channel also reaches Australia and New Zealand, completing its five-continent footprint.

The Portuguese diaspora

Portugal has one of Europe's great emigrant traditions, with millions of Portuguese and people of Portuguese descent living abroad, from the historic communities of France, Brazil and the former African colonies to newer emigration to the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Luxembourg.

SIC Internacional serves these communities with programming that maintains their linguistic and cultural identity. For Portuguese emigrants, the channel's telenovelas, news and football provide a daily link to the homeland, particularly valued by older emigrants and by families raising children abroad. The channel's schedules are a calendar of Portuguese life: the evening news, the prime-time drama, the weekend football. For emigrants who have built lives far from Portugal, these daily rituals maintain a living connection to the country's rhythms. The channel's telenovelas, in particular, give families a shared daily experience that spans the distance between Lisbon and London, Paris and Toronto. For nearly three decades, SIC Internacional has been the commercial voice of Portuguese television abroad, and its global footprint continues to grow with the diaspora it serves. Its five-continent distribution makes it one of the most widely available Portuguese-language channels in the world. The channel's Lisbon base keeps it at the heart of Portuguese broadcasting, serving the global nation of Portuguese speakers.

Portuguese in the UK

The United Kingdom hosts a large and growing Portuguese community, concentrated in London but spread across the country, from the historic Portuguese neighbourhoods of South London to communities in the East of England's agricultural regions and beyond. Portuguese is among the most spoken languages in many British towns.

For British Portuguese viewers, SIC Internacional offers the familiar programmes of Portugal's leading commercial channel: the evening news, the telenovelas, the talk shows and the Liga football. Its European satellite availability makes it accessible to Portuguese households across Britain.

Competition with RTP Internacional

SIC Internacional's great rival is RTP Internacional, the international channel of Portugal's public broadcaster, which was formally created in February 1992 and is considered the first truly global Lusophone television channel. The two channels compete for the same diaspora audience with the output of Portugal's public and commercial broadcasters.

The rivalry played out notably in Brazil in 2004, when NET and Sky replaced RTP Internacional with SIC Internacional, a controversial move that illustrated the commercial competition for Portuguese-speaking audiences. Both channels continue to serve the global Lusophone world.

The Lusophone world

SIC Internacional broadcasts to the Portuguese-speaking world, the Lusophony that spans Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, East Timor and the diaspora communities on every continent. Its African footprint, through SIC Internacional África, serves the fast-growing Lusophone markets of Angola and Mozambique.

The channel's global reach reflects the worldwide dispersion of the Portuguese language, spoken by more than 250 million people. For this vast audience, SIC Internacional is the commercial voice of Portuguese television, carrying the telenovelas, news and entertainment of Lisbon to Lusophone communities on every continent.

Telenovelas and Portuguese drama

Portuguese telenovelas are among the country's most successful cultural exports, and SIC Internacional carries the best of them to the diaspora. The channel's dramas, from contemporary stories to historical epics, command loyal audiences among Portuguese emigrants, for whom the evening telenovela is a ritual of home.

SIC's investment in original drama has defined Portuguese commercial television since the 1990s, and the international channel ensures that emigrants share in the national conversation around each new production. The telenovelas also introduce the Portuguese language and culture to non-Portuguese viewers in mixed households.

Nearly three decades on air

From its 1997 launch in France to its current five-continent distribution, SIC Internacional has spent nearly three decades bringing Portuguese television to the diaspora. Its expansion from Europe to Africa, the Americas and Oceania traces the routes of Portuguese emigration.

For Portuguese communities in the United Kingdom and around the world, the channel remains essential viewing: the news, the telenovelas and the football of home, broadcast from Lisbon to the global Portuguese nation. Its nearly three decades of service have made it as familiar to emigrants as the domestic channel it represents.