In the first years of opening, the station operated with a small transmitter and a single VT to reproduce U-Matic tapes, mainly chapters of soap operas and editions of Jornal Nacional, which were shown in Balsas a week later, when the tapes arrived from São Luís transported by bus, under the responsibility of TV Difusora, which then returned to the capital of Maranhão to follow the same route and brought the same programming.
The journalist stated that the sale coincided with TV Globo's ultimatum given to the businessman, for the broadcaster to adapt to the digital transmission system, which would expire at the end of March.
As the equipment is expensive and Chico Coelho did not have the capital to invest in this purchase, TV Rio Balsas would lose its Globo affiliation at the end of March.
According to Varão, in order not to lose the TV Globo signal, which would be handed over to political opponents (who were already interested), mainly the Rocha Family (which has two TV concessions in the city), he preferred to sell the concession to Sistema Mirante de Fernando Sarney, which according to the journalist, was R$8 million reais.
One of Fernando Sarney's first measures was for the station to broadcast all programs from TV Mirante de São Luís, except the evening news.
The broadcaster started to generate only the local JMTV 2nd Edition, but its coverage was expanded to 15 municipalities in the south of Maranhão.
[10] The following day, February 1, Grupo Mirante integrated journalistic coverage in the south of the state, regionalizing the content.
Several local programs were part of the broadcaster's schedule, and were discontinued: The station began its digital transmissions on July 11, 2016, through UHF channel 31.