Television is one of the major mass media of Chile. It was introduced in 1957. There are 63 broadcast stations throughout the country (plus 121 repeaters) (1997). The broadcast television system used is NTSC. The primary regulator of television content is the National Television Council (CNTV). The technical aspects are regulated by the Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunications, through the Undersecretariat of Telecommunications (Subtel).

History

The first television transmission in Chile took place on October 5, 1957, from the

Catholic University of Valparaíso The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

's main campus, giving birth to UCV, the country's first television channel. Two years later, on August 21, 1959, the Catholic University of Chile made an experimental transmission between its main campus and the '' El Mercurio'' newspaper headquarters, both in Santiago's downtown, inaugurating the country's second channel, Canal 13, occupying frequency 2 for a few years (now 13). Color television debuted on February 6, 1978.

Users

According to the 2002 census, 87% of Chilean households had at least one

color television Color television or Colour television is a television transmission technology that includes color information for the picture, so the video image can be displayed in color on the television set. It improves on the monochrome or black-and-white t ...

set. According to a November–December 2011 nationwide poll by CEP, 88.6% of Chilean households had at least one color television set, 0.9% didn't and 10.5% did not answer. Sixty percent of those households that said they owned at least one color TV set also said they had cable or satellite television.

Cable/satellite television

In Chile, there are 1,138,718 cable television subscribers (55.3%) and 921,490 satellite television subscribers (44.7%) as of September 2011. The household penetration rate for cable and satellite television stands at 40.4% as of September 2011.

Digital television

In late October 2008, the President submitted a bill to Congress detailing the legal framework for DTTV broadcasting in the country, but without defining which standard would be used.) On 14 September 2009, Chile announced its decision to adopt the Japanese / Brazilian standard ISDB-T International with

MPEG-4 MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related tec ...

for digital terrestrial television, joining Brazil, Argentina and Peru. The analog switchoff was scheduled for 2019. (Chile had delayed its decision on which digital terrestrial television standard to adopt. As of 2021, a new schedule has been set for 2024 TVN, Chile's state-owned channel, has made digital terrestrial television broadcast tests since 1999. Canal 13 has been doing so since 2007 in Santiago only, transmitting in three DTV formats (

ATSC Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) standards are an American set of standards for digital television transmission over terrestrial, cable and satellite networks. It is largely a replacement for the analog NTSC standard and, like that ...

, DVB and

ISDB Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting (ISDB; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Tōgō dejitaru hōsō sābisu'') is a Japanese broadcasting standard for digital television (DTV) and digital radio. ISDB supersedes both the NTSC-J analog telev ...

). In Valparaiso,

UCV TV TV+ (pronounced ''Te Ve Más'' or TV Más) is a Chilean free-to-air television channel. which is broadcast from Santiago. Previously known as the Television Corporation of the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso or UCV Televisión, it w ...

was to start in June 2010 demonstrative ISDB-Tb broadcasting for the Valparaíso/Viña del Mar area, using an 800 watts transmitter. HDTV-ready television sets are widely sold in Chile, and cable and satellite television companies transmit limited HD content to its subscribers (27 HD channels in

VTR A video tape recorder (VTR) is a tape recorder designed to record and playback video and audio material from magnetic tape. The early VTRs were open-reel devices that record on individual reels of 2-inch-wide (5.08 cm) tape. They were us ...

(2 national-free, 4 Premiums, 21 basic), the country's largest cable TV provider).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Television In Chile

History

Users

Cable/satellite television

Digital television

Most viewed channels

See also

References