RTP council renews Nicolau Santos and Hugo Figueiredo for 2027-2029 term

Incumbents keep their RTP seats

The Conselho Geral Independente (CGI), which oversees the RTP board, announced on Friday, 6 November 2026 that it had chosen Nicolau Santos as president and Hugo Graça Figueiredo as non-financial board member for the 2027-2029 term. The choice closed a procedure opened by an invitation to express interest published on 10 July 2026, after a wait of two months. The pair had applied together for renewal. In its communiqué the council described its choice in these words:

“The council decided to choose the joint candidacy, respectively, of Nicolau Fernando Ramos dos Santos and Hugo Graça Figueiredo.”

The council said the pair will now be formally nominated under article 11 of RTP's statutes, a step that has not yet taken place. Santos and Figueiredo were first chosen in 2021, but sources disagree on the date of their last renewal. Some reporting gives 2023, while RTP's own announcement says Santos was renewed in 2024 for a term that ends this year.

Four pairs applied, one seat stays open

Four candidate pairs applied, and the council chose the existing one over three rivals. Francisco Teixeira, who works in communications, and Gustavo Santos Lima, who directs a marketing area at Google Europe, Middle East and Africa, formed one pair. Luís Castro, presenter of the programme Sociedade Civil and a former RTP journalist who was once deputy news director, applied with Luísa Ribeiro, RTP's financial administrator from 2021 to 2024. The third pair was Pedro Mota Carmo, former chief executive of Nos Lusomundo Cinemas, Nos Lusomundo Audiovisuais and Dreamia, with Paulo Campos Costa, president of the Luso-Brazilian Foundation since 2022. The financial vice-president seat is still unfilled. That selection will run as a separate process, launched now, and any appointment depends on a prior binding opinion from the Ministry of Finance.

The audit behind the dispute

The renewal comes while RTP contests an audit by the Inspeção-Geral de Finanças (IGF). The IGF audit found the company paid 12.25 million euros in subsidies without legal support between 2018 and 2024. The payments were salary supplements for hundreds of workers, including presentation allowances paid to presenters. RTP rejects the IGF reading and argues the payments fall within the 2006 company agreement and internal regulations. The board stresses that external auditors certified the accounts and that the shareholder approved them without reservations on this matter. In August the company and union structures signed an interpretive norm of the company agreement to clarify the legal footing of these practices.