Investigation · Media and official advertising
Channels 4, 10 and 12: the official advertising that leaves a trace is 0.3% of their income
The financial statements of Montevideo’s three private channels are public. Channel 12 lost 150 million pesos in 2025. All three bill similar figures, between 900 million and 1 billion pesos each. We cross that income against what the State pays them in the procurement portal. The advertising that leaves a trace never reaches 0.5%. The rest cannot be traced, and here is why.
The starting point
What the accounts say
Montevideo’s three private channels file financial statements. Gustavo Gómez, executive director of OBSERVACOM, published the 2024 and 2025 figures in three charts branded Info&Com. Channel 12 reported a loss of 150,267,565 pesos in 2025. Channel 10 closed with a 13,666,202 profit. Channel 4 closed with 3,027,313, against 47,961,449 the year before.
Income is similar across the three. Channel 10 billed 981,711,275 pesos. Channel 12 billed 974,630,259. Channel 4 billed 895,898,709 in its year ended in June. That is some 23 to 24 million dollars each, in a year without elections.
This piece does not dispute those figures. It takes them as the denominator and asks one thing: how much of that income is public money you can see.
| Channel | Income 2025 | Change vs 2024 | Result 2025 | Year end |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canal 10 · SAETA S.A. Emisoras de Televisión y Anexos SAETA | $ 982 M | -5% | $ 13,7 M | diciembre |
| Canal 12 · Teledoce Sociedad Televisora Larrañaga S.A. | $ 975 M | -9% | −$ 150 M | diciembre |
| Canal 4 · Monte Carlo Monte Carlo TV S.A. | $ 896 M | +6% | $ 3 M | junio |
Quoted figure, not measured here
Income and results from the 2024 and 2025 financial statements of channels 4, 10 and 12, in current pesos. Copied as published; this site does not recalculate them.Gustavo Gómez (OBSERVACOM) · Info&Com charts · 17/08/2026
The cross
What the State pays them
The Compras Estatales portal publishes every award with its supplier. The three channels appear with their own tax ID. Adding their awards year by year gives the official advertising that leaves a trace.
| Channel | Tax ID | Advertising, 2025 year | % of income | Total since 2003 | Contracts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canal 12 · Teledoce | 21-022373-0017 | $ 2,6 M | 0,27% | $ 151 M | 165 |
| Canal 10 · SAETA | 21-013421-0018 | $ 2,7 M | 0,27% | $ 151 M | 182 |
| Canal 4 · Monte CarloJuly–June financial year | 21-093640-0013 | $ 3,6 M | 0,40% | $ 137 M | 166 |
The cross
None passes 0.5%. In 2025 Channel 10 billed the State 2,670,765 pesos: 0.27% of its income. Channel 12 billed 2,592,213: 0.27%. Channel 4 billed 3,619,213 in its year to June: 0.40%. Together they add up to some 190 thousand dollars.
Channel 12’s 2025 loss equals 58 times the advertising it billed that year. It also equals 99% of everything the State paid it in 23 years: 150,267,565 against 151,210,888 pesos. Official advertising does not explain that result.
The series
State advertising to the three channels, in today’s pesos
Amounts from different years do not compare in current pesos. This series is deflated by the BCU’s Unidad Indexada, in pesos of August 2026. It adds the three channels together.
Official advertising to channels 4, 10 and 12, in pesos of August 2026
The series
The peak is 2014: 118 million of today’s pesos across the three. In 2025 it was 8.2 million. Visible official advertising to the channels fell to a fourteenth in eleven years.
Why it fell
All advertising falls, and the channels fall harder
The same series, looking at the whole class. The first column is all registered official advertising; the second, the share billed by channels 4, 10 and 12. Both in pesos of August 2026.
| Year | All advertising | To the three channels | Channels share | Awards |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | $ 1,51 mil M | $ 118 M | 7,8% | 776 |
| 2015 | $ 562 M | $ 58,8 M | 10,6% | 818 |
| 2016 | $ 773 M | $ 41,4 M | 5,6% | 830 |
| 2017 | $ 407 M | $ 11,5 M | 2,9% | 807 |
| 2018 | $ 506 M | $ 40,7 M | 8,1% | 868 |
| 2019 | $ 579 M | $ 39,1 M | 6,8% | 853 |
| 2020 | $ 490 M | $ 30,9 M | 6,3% | 519 |
| 2021 | $ 359 M | $ 25,8 M | 7% | 500 |
| 2022 | $ 643 M | $ 41,3 M | 6,3% | 577 |
| 2023 | $ 193 M | $ 34,7 M | 18,1% | 494 |
| 2024 | $ 234 M | $ 15,4 M | 6,6% | 532 |
| 2025 | $ 298 M | $ 8,2 M | 2,7% | 437 |
| 2026 | $ 87,6 M | 0 | 0% | 225 |
In this table the channel amounts are limited to the "Advertising and propaganda" class. The per-channel totals elsewhere in this piece also add a few codes outside the class, so they run slightly higher. 2026 is incomplete.
Why it fell
Two falls overlap. All registered advertising falls fivefold between 2014 and 2025. The channels fall fourteenfold. And their share of it goes from 7.8% to 2.7%. Operations fall too: from 776 awards in 2014 to 437 in 2025. So far in 2026 the three channels record none.
What explains the fall, and what does not
No published source explains the fall in the record itself. What is documented is the context: advertising money moved to the platforms, with online advertising going from 12 to 48 million dollars while classic media lost ground. Pay TV lost more than 45% of its subscribers between 2019 and 2025.
The piece cannot go further. Less advertising in the record does not prove the State spends less: it may be buying by another route. It is the same limit the floor section describes.
How it is split
The State splits television advertising into near-equal shares
The largest television buy of recent years is made by the Ministry of Tourism. In the last two contracts the unit price per channel repeats to the cent.
| Channel | Amount | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Canal 10 · SAETA | $ 2,7 M | 27,3% |
| Canal 12 · Teledoce | $ 2,6 M | 26,5% |
| Canal 4 · Monte Carlo | $ 2,6 M | 26,5% |
| Canal 5 · state-owned | $ 1,9 M | 19,6% |
$ 9,8 M
How it is split
Tourism paid 9,771,857 pesos in each contract. Channel 10 took 27.3%. Channel 12 and Channel 4 took 26.5% each. Channel 5, the state channel, took 19.6%. Both awards repeat the same unit price, one in August 2024 and one in May 2025: in current pesos the State paid the same, in today’s pesos it paid less.
The concentration
One buy, 185 suppliers, two thirds to three channels
In December 2023 Tourism awarded a campaign to 185 outlets across the country in a single record. Radios, provincial channels, local newspapers and cable operators shared the list with the Montevideo channels.
Tourism national campaign, December 2023 (20.2 M pesos)
The concentration
The three private Montevideo channels took 67% of that buy. Channel 5 took 17%. The other 181 suppliers shared the remaining 16%.
Why the list runs so long: the 20% for interior media
Article 774 of Law 19,924 requires at least 20% of nationwide official advertising to go to media outlets in the interior. Decree 392/022 sets the detail: 0.5% for each interior department, or 0.25% when the body operates in a competitive market. The Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining validates which outlets qualify. Each body reports by 30 March.
That rule explains the shape of the buy above: a single award with 185 suppliers from across the country. The decree sets no fine. Its article 10 only allows the Executive to issue recommendations or observations.
Compliance with the 20% CANNOT be checked against this data, and it is worth saying before anyone tries. The rule defines an interior outlet by its service area; the record only carries the supplier tax address, which is not the same thing. On top of that, between a fifth and two fifths of the yearly amount belongs to suppliers with no RUPE record. Any percentage derived from that would be invented.
The conflict
What happened at Channel 12, and what the company did not say
The 2025 loss became known while the channel was in dispute. This is cited press, not data; each card links to its article.
On 27 July 2026 the channel announced the layoffs: around 25 workers from different areas, plus a cut of 15 temporary staff. The assembly voted an indefinite strike with no union cover.
The company unilaterally terminated the collective agreement in force since 2005, expiring on 1 December 2026. The channel clarified that the termination does not cover salary adjustments. The dispute moved to the Ministry of Labour and to the Senate Labour Legislation Committee.
The company published no detailed explanation of the economic grounds for the restructuring. The accounts say it lost 150,267,565 pesos; the reason is not published.
Advertising money moved to the platforms: online advertising went from 12 to 48 million dollars while classic media lost ground.
Pay TV lost more than 45% of its subscribers between 2019 and 2025, and streaming keeps growing.
The tender for football television rights closed in December 2025 and takes the AUF to some 67.5 million dollars a year, three times the previous figure. That presses the 2026 accounts onward, not the one that closed with the loss.
Two clarifications, because they circulate the other way round. "Santo y Seña" is a Channel 4 programme, not Channel 12 one. And the new football rights start in 2026: they do not explain the 2025 accounts.
Tracing the rest
Why the remaining 99% cannot be followed
The accounts publish total income. They do not publish its composition. From the published figure you cannot separate private advertising from broadcasting rights or programme sales.
The procurement portal does not close the gap either. There are three reasons, and all three are measured.
- 1State-owned companies barely record advertisingANTEL shows up in the portal as a buyer, yet it barely buys advertising there. Across the 33 codes of the “Advertising and propaganda” class it records five lines, between 2025 and 2026: three official notices, one sponsorship and one advertising stand. None is television.262ANTEL awards in the data5advertising lines in total$ 1.537.979 what those five lines add up to0ANTEL awards to any channel
- 2Advertising flows through intermediariesIn the recipient ranking published on /pauta, none of the top six is a private channel; the first is the Ministry of Tourism itself. When the State pays an agency, the record names the agency, not the outlet that aired the ad.
- 3The record is of awards, not invoicesThe amount is what was awarded and the date is the official record’s, not the month the ad aired. An award may run in instalments, in another year, or not run at all.
So the figure is a floor, not a total. Channel 12’s 2,592,213 pesos in 2025 are what an official file proves. The ceiling is unknown, and nobody publishes it.
Keep exploring
The rest of the advertising
This piece looks at three suppliers. The official advertising page shows the whole class: who pays, who bills and in what format.
How it was done
Method and limits
Income and results are copied from the Info&Com charts, not recalculated. They are current pesos, and each channel closes its year as the table says.
Advertising amounts come from the site’s data, a replica of Compras Estatales in OCDS. Channels are identified by supplier tax ID: Channel 10 is S.A. Emisoras de Televisión y Anexos SAETA (21-013421-0018), Channel 12 is Sociedad Televisora Larrañaga S.A. (21-022373-0017) and Channel 4 is Monte Carlo TV S.A. (21-093640-0013).
Monte Carlo S.A. (21-015368-0016) is left out. It is another tax ID of the same group, with amounts ten times smaller, and it appears in the radio lists. Adding it to the channel would mix two companies.
Per-supplier amounts are apportioned line by line, with the same method as the rest of the site: each item takes its share of the contract total in proportion to unit price times quantity. Records above the 50 billion peso plausibility ceiling are excluded.
Both figures are comparable because neither includes VAT. The feed publishes amounts before tax and an income statement does not count VAT as revenue. The yearly series is deflated by the Unidad Indexada; the percentages over income compare pesos of the same year, so they do not need it.
Channel 4’s year ends in June, so its percentage compares July-to-June advertising against the income of that same year. Channels 10 and 12 close in December and run on calendar years.
Sources
Verified sources
- Gustavo Gómez (OBSERVACOM) — los tres cuadros de resultados e ingresos 2024–2025, con la marca Info&Com
- r/monte_video — el hilo donde circuló el dato
- AIN — Registro de Estados Contables: dónde se depositan los balances y cómo se consultan
- OBSERVACOM — Observatorio Latinoamericano de Regulación, Medios y Convergencia
- IMPO — Decreto 392/022: reglamenta el 20% de la publicidad oficial a medios del interior
- la diaria — la reglamentación que obliga a destinar 20% de la publicidad oficial al interior
- El Observador — cómo se distribuye la publicidad oficial en los medios del interior
- APU — Canal 12: despidos, ruptura del convenio colectivo y un conflicto abierto
- Montevideo Portal — trabajadores de Canal 12 en paro por la ola de despidos
- Comunicación y Medios (SciELO) — declive de los grupos nacionales de comunicación en Uruguay
- la diaria — cae la TV para abonados y crece el streaming (encuesta Usina)
- Compras Estatales — el portal oficial de cada adjudicación citada
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About this data
This is data journalism over open data, not an audit. Income and results are what the cited source published; the advertising is what the State publishes in its procurement portal.
The advertising measured is a floor. The portal records the supplier that invoices, so a buy made through an agency is booked under the agency. Every award cited links to its file so anyone can re-check it.