Televisión Pública (''Public Television'', abbreviated TVP) is a publicly owned
Argentine television network, the national
public broadcaster
Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...
. It began broadcasting in 1951, when LR3 Radio Belgrano Televisión channel 7 in
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
, its key station and the first television station in the country, signed on the air.
History
1951–1978: Foundations
Jaime Yankelevich, businessman and operator of radio station LR3 "Radio Belgrano", received the approval of the Perón family to import television equipment from the United States. The final approval came from
Eva Perón
María Eva Duarte de Perón (; ; 7 May 1919 – 26 July 1952), better known as just Eva Perón or by the nickname Evita (), was an Argentine politician, activist, actress, and philanthropist who served as First Lady of Argentina from June 194 ...
, who, when informed of the importation of the new equipment, said "''Sí, sí, todo muy lindo pero yo lo que quiero es que televisen el acto del Día de la Lealtad''" ("Yes, yes, all very good, but what I want is for them to televise the acts of Loyalty Day"). With the support of Minister of Communications Oscar Lorenzo Nicolini and the Radio Belgrano executives, preparations were made to start the first television station in Argentina. Yankelevich imported
Bell
A bell is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be made by an inter ...
equipment,
DuMont cameras, and a horizontally polarized antenna initially mounted on the
MOP Building. On September 24, 1951, Radio Belgrano announcer Fito Salinas was put behind a camera and backed by a musical group, and the first test transmissions commenced. On the first days of tests, televisions were set up in department stores in a 500-meter radius around the site, and the transmitter put out 500 watts of power, but the signal was ramped up and brought to 40 kW power. At that power level, reception was clear for around.
Finally, October 17, 1951 came, and once more, channel 7 signed on for the first time under the name it would bear for a decade: LR3 Radio Belgrano TV. The first broadcast was conducted on
Loyalty Day
Loyalty Day is observed on May 1 in the United States. It is a day set aside "for the reaffirmation of loyalty to the United States and for the recognition of the heritage of American freedom". The date, May 1, was set in order to counter Inter ...
, as Eva Perón wanted, from the
Plaza de Mayo
The Plaza de Mayo (; en, May Square) is a city square and main foundational site of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was formed in 1884 after the demolition of the Recova building, unifying the city's Plaza Mayor and Plaza de Armas, by that time know ...
; the remote cameras were connected to the studios by a cable link. 2,500 televisions were in place in the country to watch the events. For the first time in 24 days, Eva Perón rose from her bed to attend, dressed in black. The
CGT awarded her the Distinction of Recognition and to president
Juan Perón
Juan Domingo Perón (, , ; 8 October 1895 – 1 July 1974) was an Argentine Army general and politician. After serving in several government positions, including Minister of Labour and Vice President of a military dictatorship, he was elected P ...
the Great Peronist Medal of Extraordinary Class. Doses of tranquilizers, administered by the education minister, were necessary to allow Eva to deliver a brief address, her final political testament, in which she mentioned her own death nine times.
On November 4, 1951, LR3-TV began regular commercial telecasts, broadcasting from 5:30 to 10:30pm each day. In 1957, the studios moved to the
Alas Building
The Alas Building ( es, Edificio Alas) is a Rationalist residential and office building located in the San Nicolás section of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It stands at a height of 141 metres (463 ft) and houses 41 floors.
Alas was the tallest bui ...
, where they occupied two subfloors, the first floor and the basement. In 1961, the television and radio station parted the separate ways, with the television station adopting its current callsign, LS 82 TV.
There was even a brief period in which the station was awarded to a private entity: Editorial Haynes was awarded the license in 1954 by Perón's government, but the next year, the government of the
Revolución Libertadora
''Revolución Libertadora'' (; ''Liberating Revolution'') was the coup d'état that ended the second presidential term of Juan Perón in Argentina, on 16 September 1955.
Background
President Perón was first elected in 1946. In 1949, a ...
annulled the transfer, thus it remained a national channel owned by the government.
1978–2000: In comes the Color
![Canal 7 Argentina](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Canal_7_Argentina.JPG)
Argentina hosted the
1978 FIFA World Cup
The 1978 FIFA World Cup was the 11th edition of the FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial international football world championship tournament among the men's senior national teams. It was held in Argentina between 1 and 25 June.
The Cup was won by t ...
. In order to allow for the event to be broadcast in color around the world, new color studio facilities were required; the country still had no color telecasts of its own. At the same time, there was unfinished construction in Buenos Aires; in the mid-1970s, prior to the coup of 1976, work had commenced on the ''Altar de la Patria'' (Altar of the Fatherland), which was to be a mausoleum for Eva and Juan Perón. A new innovative television center was built on the underground site for what was named Argentina 78 Televisora (''A78TV''), the television production center for the World Cup. The facility, situated on
Avenida Figueroa Alcorta
Avenida Figueroa Alcorta is a major thoroughfare in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with a length of over along the city's northside.
History
The rapid northward growth of the city of Buenos Aires during the late nineteenth century was facilitated by ...
, was Argentina's first dedicated television studio facility with features such as soundproofed studios. The center was outfitted with new Bosch Fernseh color equipment, which would be in service for decades. Among the various tasks that A78TV performed was the delivery of color live video to movie theaters over coaxial cable and export of color live video for worldwide coverage. However, just one match was broadcast in color to Argentina itself—the final match, between Argentina and the Netherlands—using the
PAL-N
Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...
color standard.
![Bosch_Fernseh_en_grúa](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Bosch_Fernseh_en_gr%C3%BAa.JPG)
In 1979, Canal 7 took control of the new complex, and with it came a new name. On May 3, Canal 7 became Argentina Televisora Color (ATC), a name that would serve the channel for the remainder of the 20th century.
Carlos Montero helped design the new channel's identity.
The investment in ATC paid off, and briefly in the early 1980s, before the rise of Alejandro Romay's
Canal 9 Libertad, ATC led the national television ratings, a feat it has not accomplished since. As state network it brought news of the
Falklands War
The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial de ...
of 1982 to Argentine TV viewers nationwide, with correspondents and news crews going into the actions of the conflict, and led a national publicity campaign in support of the war effort. Dubbed "Argentines, To Victory" (''Argentinos, a Vencer''), ATC and the national government produced several commercials for this campaign, and on the opening day of the war broadcast a special program dedicated to the conflict broadcast in all its stations nationwide, and, for the first time ever for an Argentine TV station, also in South American countries (save Uruguay) and the United States, via satellite broadcasts.
The 1990s were a more turbulent time for ATC. On one front, the Bosch Fernseh equipment, which was still the bulk of the channel's workflow, was aging, and replacement parts and fixes were getting harder to find. On another, under
Carlos Menem
Carlos Saúl Menem (2 July 1930 – 14 February 2021) was an Argentine lawyer and politician who served as the President of Argentina from 1989 to 1999. Ideologically, he identified as a Peronist and supported economically liberal policies. H ...
, ATC was almost privatized and, in 1996, even had an unusual five-month change of identity to ATeCE, a la Argentina (''ATeCE, to Argentina''), with a new, more nationalist approach.
2000–present: Canal 7, TV Pública and Televisión Pública Argentina
![Vision-siete-noticias-3](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Vision-siete-noticias-3.JPG)
In 2001 Canal 7 celebrated the golden jubilee year anniversary of its first broadcasts. Under the presidency of
Fernando de la Rúa
Fernando de la Rúa (15 September 19379 July 2019) was an Argentine politician and a member of the Radical Civic Union (UCR) political party who served as President of Argentina from 10 December 1999 to 21 December 2001. De la Rúa was born in ...
by the turn of the 21st century, long-term changes came to ATC for the first time in years. In January 2000, the channel dropped its use of the acronym, going by its full name only; this was followed four months later with the retirement of Argentina Televisora Color and the relaunch of Canal 7 Argentina. In addition, the National System of Public Media (SNMP) was formed as a managing and financing entity for the channel. SNMP was replaced by a new entity, Radio y Televisión Argentina Sociedad del Estado, with the
Audiovisual Media Law in 2009.
At the beginning of the presidency of
Néstor Kirchner
Néstor Carlos Kirchner (; 25 February 195027 October 2010) was an Argentine lawyer and politician who served as the President of Argentina from 2003 to 2007, Governor of Santa Cruz Province from 1991 to 2003, Secretary General of UNASUR and ...
, the channel's management was split into fiction and non-fiction; this led to an increase in its in-house productions. In 2006,
Rosario Lufrano became the new director of Canal 7, changing its name to TV Pública and refocusing the channel to a more cultural emphasis. At the same time, new equipment—much of it ready for high definition telecasts—was ordered, finally putting to pasture the 1978-vintage Bosch Fernseh cameras and switchers.
In April 2010, TV Pública launched its digital signal on UHF channel 23, in the
ISDB-T
Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting (ISDB; Japanese: , ''Tōgō dejitaru hōsō sābisu'') is a Japanese broadcasting standard for digital television (DTV) and digital radio.
ISDB supersedes both the NTSC-J analog television system and th ...
standard also used by Japan and Brazil. The signal includes HD, SD and
1seg
is a mobile terrestrial digital audio/video and data broadcasting service in Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru and the Philippines. Service began experimentally during 2005 and commercially on April 1, 2006. It is designed ...
feeds. With the launch of the digital signal, the first in the country, the name of the channel was changed again, to the current TV Pública Digital
On April 18, 2016, as part of its 65th anniversary, TV Pública changed its name to Televisión Pública Argentina (''Argentine Public Television'').
Logo evolution
File:Logotipo de LR3 Radio Belgrano Televisión (1951-1953).png, 1951–59
File:Logotipo de LR3 Radio Belgrano Televisión (1959-1961).png, 1959–61
File:TVPargentina1961.png, 1961
File:TVPargentina1962.png, 1962
File:TVPargentina1964.png, 1964
File:TVPargentina1965.png, 1965
File:TVPargentina1966.png, 1966
File:TVPargentina1967.png, 1967
File:Logotipo de Argentina 78 Televisora Centro de Producción a colores (1978).png, June-July 1978 (during the Argentina 78 World Cup)
File:Logotipo de Argentina Televisora Color (1979-1985).svg, "ATC" (1979–85)
File:Logotipo de ATC Canal 7 (1985-1987).png, 1985–87
File:Logotipo de Argentina Televisora Color (1987-1998).png, 1987-February 1996, June 1996-1998
File:Logotipo de ATC Canal 7 (1996).png, 1996 (as ATeCE)
File:Logotipo de Argentina Televisora Color (1998-2000).svg, 1998-2000
File:Logotipo de ATC Canal 7 (2000).png, 2000 (without logo)
File:Logotipo de Canal 7 Argentina (2000-2002).svg, 2000–02
File:Logotipo de Canal 7 Argentina (2002-2003).svg, 2002–03
File:Logotipo de TV Pública Argentina (2014).svg, 2014
File:TPA 2016.png, 2016–20
Programming
Televisión Pública Argentina has a varied programming schedule. Its output includes many cultural and educational programs. It also has its own news service, with news programs branded ''Televisión Pública Noticias'' (Public Television News), and its program ''
Fútbol para todos'' (Football for all), which began in
2009-10 season, holds all rights to
Argentine Primera División
The Primera División (; en, "First Division"), known officialy as Liga Profesional de Fútbol, or Torneo Binance for sponsorship reasons, is a professional football league in Argentina, organised by the Argentine Football Association (AFA).
Th ...
and
Primera B Nacional
Primera Nacional (usually called simply Nacional B, in English "National B Division", and known as Primera B Nacional until the 2019–20 season) is the second division of the Argentine football league system. The competition is made up of 37 tea ...
matches until the end of
2016–17 season. 2013 saw the channel surprising viewers with its very first afternoon drama and youth program, and became the first station to simulcast a regional program in 2014.
Coverage
*
Argentine Primera División
The Primera División (; en, "First Division"), known officialy as Liga Profesional de Fútbol, or Torneo Binance for sponsorship reasons, is a professional football league in Argentina, organised by the Argentine Football Association (AFA).
Th ...
(Only 2 matches released per round)
*
Argentina's First Division A Women's Football Championship
*
FIFA World Cup Qualifers
*
Copa América
The Copa América ( en, America Cup) or CONMEBOL Copa América, known until 1975 as the South American Football Championship (''Campeonato Sudamericano de Fútbol'' in Spanish and ''Campeonato Sul-Americano de Futebol'' in Portuguese), is the t ...
*
Turismo Carretera
Turismo Carretera (Road racing, lit., ''Road Touring'') is a popular stock car racing series in Argentina, and the oldest auto racing series still active in the world. The series is organized by Asociación Corredores de Turismo Carretera.
The ...
*
Copa América de Futsal
The CONMEBOL Copa América de Futsal is the main national futsal competition of the CONMEBOL nations organized by the FIFA. It was first held in 1964 and was organized by Asociación Mundial de Futsal (AMF) as "Sudamericano". The tournament was a ...
(Only Argentina matches)
*
FIFA Futsal World Cup
The FIFA Futsal World Cup is an international futsal competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the member associations of FIFA, the sport's global governing body. Since the first edition that took place in 1989 in the Netherlan ...
(Only Argentina matches)
*
FIFA World Cup
The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...
*
FIFA Women's World Cup
The FIFA Women's World Cup is an international association football competition contested by the senior women's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association ( FIFA), the sport's international governing bo ...
*
Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...
References
External links
*
ATA(Asociación de Teleradiodifusoras Argentinas)
Youtube channel
{{Coord, 34, 34, 47.08, S, 58, 23, 44.68, W, type:landmark, display=title
Television networks in Argentina
Television stations in Argentina
Publicly funded broadcasters
Television channels and stations established in 1951
Spanish-language television stations
Buildings and structures in Buenos Aires
State media
1951 establishments in Argentina
Government-owned companies of Argentina