The state of Maranhão had its first television experience in 1955, when during the controversial supplementary election for the Federal Senate, journalist and candidate Assis Chateaubriand ordered a closed circuit broadcast, carried out with the technical support of Rede de Emissoras Associadas, which he owned.
Viewers were then able to follow musical numbers by Keila Vidigal and Luiz Gonzaga, under the command of announcer Carlos Frias, solely for the purpose of promoting Chateaubriand's candidacy, who ended up being elected.
Its official inauguration was on November 9, at 8 pm, with a ceremony presented by Bernardo Almeida and José Leite Machado, in which the founder Raimundo Bacelar spoke, accompanied by his brother Magno, who would be responsible for managing the station.
Then, a special show with artists from the station and musical numbers by Conjunto Farroupilha, Ellen de Lima, Francis Bento and Célio Roberto was aired at 9:30 pm, until sign-off.
Also present at the event were the state governor, Newton Bello; the mayor of São Luís, Costa Rodrigues; the Minister of Justice, Abelardo Jurema, representing President João Goulart; Agnelo Alves, representing his brother Aluízio Alves, governor of Rio Grande do Norte, who was unable to attend; Vincent Rotundo, attaché at the United States embassy in Belém, Pará, and Monsignor Osmar Palhano de Jesus, who baptized its equipment.
[1][3] TV Difusora's first team, partly from Rádio Difusora, was made up of: Luiz Cardoso de Almeida, technician; Nonato Lemos (Pudim), transmitter operator; Antonio Vieira and Ribamar Fernandes (Escurinho do Samba), telecine; Haroldo Rêgo, TV direction; Douglas Santos and Euclides Marinho (Lourinho), cameras; Elvas Ribeiro (Parafuso), sound designer; Genes Celeste Soares, set design.
Georges Ohnet and Roberto Marassi (from TV Excelsior) were responsible for the artistic direction of the programming in its first months, and after returning to São Paulo in 1964, they were replaced by Reynaldo Faray.
To publicize the new means of communication, leaflets were dropped around the city with the programming schedule, and TV equipment was also installed on electrical poles, where people gathered to watch the broadcaster.
Even historic moments such as the first moon landing in 1969 and the 1970 FIFA World Cup were also seen on tape delay in Maranhão, since Embratel's transmission trunks only reached the state at the beginning of the following decade.
[1] On the other hand, the number of local programs decreased considerably, also partly due to investments made to expand its signal to the interior, through microwave relays in the municipalities that bordered the São Luís-Teresina Railway, reaching the capital of Piauí (which at the time did not yet have television stations) in August 1968.
[5] In 1985, TV Difusora and the other stations in the group had 50% of their shares sold to businessman and politician Francisco Coelho, state secretary of agriculture under the then governor Luiz Rocha.
The Government of the State of Maranhão, headed by the owner of the station, also had a major role in paying off the debts, allocating advertising funds and articles produced by SECOM that were broadcast on local news programs.
Then, an Algo Mais special was broadcast, where Paulinha Lobão welcomed former and current employees of TV Difusora to celebrate her birthday, namely José Raimundo Rodrigues, Zé Cirilo, Orquídea Santos, Messias Vilar, Mário Porto, Olavo Sampaio and Daucyana Castro.
Subsequently, the then federal deputy Weverton Rocha, represented by lawyer and businessman Willer Tomaz de Sousa, leased the station and Difusora FM,[12] definitively purchasing the group in March 2020.