📣Antel, Antel Arena and telecoms· 2005-2022

US$194 million in Antel advertising and a reinstated secrecy

Antel spent US$194 million on advertising between 2005 and 2019, nearly half of it during Carolina Cosse's five-year term. In 2022 it classified other spending again.

Under debateUnder public debate

Figure published by the sources

US$ 194 millones en publicidad entre 2005 y 2019, de los cuales US$ 91 millones entre 2010 y 2014

Bodies involved

ANTEL

What it is

Antel is one of the country's biggest advertisers: it sponsors national teams, festivals, shows and mass campaigns. For years those amounts were classified as reserved. In September 2020 the board chaired by Gabriel Gurméndez lifted the confidentiality over promotion, sponsorship and advertising spending imposed by earlier administrations, and released the figures in response to a freedom-of-information request. According to El Observador, the figures were certified by PwC and converted to dollars at each year's average exchange rate.

What is questioned

On 3 September 2020 El Observador published the breakdown by period: US$48 million between 2005 and 2009 (under María Simon), US$91 million between 2010 and 2014 (under Carolina Cosse) and US$56 million between 2015 and 2019 (under Andrés Tolosa), a total of US$194 million over fifteen years. Gurméndez said "a tombstone had been placed over all this information and that has prevented any exercise of citizen oversight". Cosse replied the next day in Montevideo Portal: "This is fake news, because what they are not saying is that Antel, with that advertising investment — which I find odd they call an expense — generated far more money"; she said it won Antel "14 points of market share" — each point worth, by her calculation, some nine million dollars a year — and that "the amounts were always public", since the company published audited accounts including marketing spending and what was new was the breakdown of how it was applied. In April 2022, according to El Observador, Gurméndez's own administration classified as reserved the number-portability campaign and the sponsorship contract with the Uruguayan Football Association, arguing that disclosure could cause "a loss of competitive advantages" or "damage its production process" in a competitive market.

Why it matters to you

US$194 million is more than one Antel Arena, spent on ads, sponsorships and endorsements. Knowing how much is paid and to whom is what allows a debate over whether that investment brings in more customers — as Cosse argues — or whether it is money that could lower bills or return to the Treasury.

Where it stands

Under debate

The lifting of the classification was decided in 2020 and the new classification of advertising spending became known on 21 April 2022. This is neither a court case nor an audit with published conclusions: it is a debate over how much, and how visibly, a public company competing with private firms should spend on advertising. As of this file's closing (August 2026) there are no developments after the 21 April 2022 report.

Read the full investigation

The open-data cross-reference

Open this set in the explorer

What the state awarded to the bodies and companies named in this file, according to the official Compras Estatales data. It is a cross-reference for scale, not proof of irregularity: it includes contracts nobody questioned.

How this cross-reference was builteverything recorded under the body's buying unit (not only this case) · between 2005 and 2022

$ 25.413.810 Awarded (cross-ref)

32Contracts

7Suppliers

Who was paid

Suppliers ranked by amount awarded in the cross-reference. A contract with several suppliers counts in full against each one: this is a ceiling, not a split.

What it bought

Spending by category, from price times quantity of each awarded item, in the contract currency.

Contracts per year

The detail

30 contracts

The largest contracts in the cross-reference, high to low. Tap one for its record and the link to the official purchase.

Amounts in pesos, normalised. Records with impossible quantities are excluded from the total. Much advertising spending is channelled through agencies and media buyers, so the supplier recorded in procurement data is not always the outlet or event that ultimately receives the money. The tranches declared reserved do not appear at all. There is no audit with findings and no court case over this spending.