ClicRBS

The online news site ClickRBS is an integrated portal for digital and printed media outlets of the RBS group. It was created in 2000. Its content is aimed audiences in Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina states, with regional versions for each of these states. The portal is connected with other websites owned by the group: GaúchaZH portal (fusion of Rádio Gaúcha and Zero Hora newspaper’s content, since 2017), Gaúcha, Atlântida, Farroupilha and Itapema radio stations’s websites, and Jornal Zero Hora and TV RBS websites.

It is the 108th most accessed website in Brazil according to Alexa (July 2017) and 36th news portal in Facebook sharing related to political news (Monitor do Debate Político no Meio Digital, July 2017).

News and other sections published in the portal prioritize sports, mainly soccer, in their editorial lines. The focus on soccer shows on other media owned by the group, such as Rede Gaúcha Sat and RBS TV, a Rede Globo affiliate which, at least by 2016, retained transmission rights for the Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina’s State Championships. Rede Globo, head of the network, also has rights for most of the main championships involving Brazilian teams. These transmission rights contracts depend on negotiations with soccer confederations and clubs, and entail the transfer of large amounts of money, thus becoming a source of disputes between clubs and TV networks.

Santa Catarina newspapers are bundled in Click RBS and used to belong to the RBS group, but were sold in 2016 to Grupo NC. We were not able to investigate the nature of the two groups' contract, which allows them to share content through the portal. But it is important to note that both groups’ (RBS and NC) activities encompass a wide range of businesses: media, technology, investment, pharmaceutical and energy.