Since then, the company has been reorganized on several occasions and its operations areas have increased over the years, becoming one of the leading television broadcasters in Chile and South America.
[1] TVN's public mission determines the obligation to promote the national cultural identity, the values of democracy, human rights, care for the environment and respect for diversity.
Currently, the chairperson of Televisión Nacional de Chile is Andrea Fresard, while the executive director and legal representative is Alfredo Ramírez.
Televisión Nacional is the only publicly-owned television company in Chile and competes with other private broadcasting networks, having a self-financing scheme based mainly on the advertising sales that it has preserved since its inception and later regulated by Act 19,132 of 1992.
[6] Additionally, it is affiliated with the Asociación Nacional de Televisión or Anatel (National Association of Television) and the Council of Self-Regulation and Advertising Ethics, among others.
The essential need to own a channel belonging to the Chilean State took relevance from the 1960s, as the great challenge that the government of Eduardo Frei Montalva wanted to face, believing ideally, the existence of a public television station with national coverage, capable of transmitting in a territory of large geographical features.
Subsequently, on 1 February 1969, the broadcast of channel 6 of Punta Arenas began with an inauguration attended by President Eduardo Frei Montalva, as well as the Intendant of Magallanes, Mateo Martinic.
This channel had previously and experimentally broadcast Chile's matches in the Davis Cup that year, the presidential message to Congress of 21 May (Navy Day) and the arrival of man on the Moon that July.
Initially, the first studios of the new network were concentrated in a house leased to the family of the poet Vicente Huidobro, located at the intersections of Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins Avenue (Alameda) and San Martín Street, near the Torre Entel.
Originally, the network's mission was to be a pluralistic and independent media of the current government, which was intended to "integrate, inform, entertain and give culture to the Chilean family", as proposed by the Ministry of Education and the group of professionals who directed TVN.
There was also an assault on the headquarters, where abundant amounts of audiovisual material were burned by the military, including a large part of the records of the first years of broadcast.
After resuming the broadcast, it became the official television network of the new military dictatorship with informative management and strong control in the programming, granting an advantage in audiences to Canal 13 news programme Teletrece, which was considered "more liberal".
The first experimental colour broadcast in Chile was developed by Televisión Nacional in the final night of the Viña del Mar International Song Festival on 6 February 1978.
At the time of the authorization and start-up, a large part of the network's programming was already in place, and programmes such as La cafetera voladora were fully developed with this technology.
However, despite all the technical achievements, the company is criticized for its newscast, 60 Minutos, by misrepresenting the news and information that every day reverberated society during this period.
In addition to the loss of credibility, prestige, and audience, this led to the reorganization and rethinking the mission and identity of Televisión Nacional at times of political instability in Chile, as the last months of the regime were being developed, therefore, in democracy, the company seeks to be reformed and the new government authorities were prepared to make all kinds of changes.
This was debated widely between the government and opposition, consecrating the publicly-owned network like an autonomous company with legal personality in its own right and establishing that its assets must be managed by a board of directors, whose designation involved the President of the Republic and the Senate, as well as a representative of the staff.
This legislation sought to transform TVN into a media, autonomous, pluralistic, and representative, achieving the original objective proposed at the outset of programmatic content impartiality trying to have independence from the government.
TVN received the so-called "new millennium" with the special program 2000 Hoy (2000 today) that was broadcast in various segments during the day of 31 December 1999 and featured the participation of various faces of the channel.
Since then, the success of the channel continued at the end of the 1990s, and with the arrival of 2000, several programs became popular, such as the telenovela Romané, which obtained 50 audience points in its final episode.
On the afternoon of 19 December 2000, the resignation of René Cortázar from his position as executive director was announced, after a controversy surrounding the episode La CIA en Chile of the Informe Especial program that detailed the intervention of the Central Agency of US intelligence during the government of President Salvador Allende.
This caused the abrupt departure of René Cortázar, despite the fact that during his tenure in his last year, TVN experienced a period of economic prosperity with profits in excess of three billion pesos.
Among its signals is considered a main channel of free reception which transmits by satellite to several repeaters that are located in Chilean territories, having a reach of 98% of the population.
Televisión Nacional de Chile has production centres with newsrooms and studios in Antofagasta, Copiapó, La Serena, Valparaíso, Rancagua, Talca, Concepción, Temuco and Punta Arenas.
After the coup d'état on 11 September 1973, Tevito was suddenly removed from the advertisements, several video tapes where it appeared were destroyed by the Chilean Army, and finally, it was replaced by other characters.
The character was created by Carlos González, a student of the Fine Arts Institute in Santiago, Chile, whose drawing won the competition among six other submissions.
It debuted in 1974 and remained on screen until 1978 with the arrival of color television, they were usually accompanied by music from the band Los Huasos Quincheros.
The 1990 design, launched on 23 November 1990, ditched the "screen" with the TV typograph in black text, and Chile was replaced with a stripe of the Chilean colors.