[4] As the main member of the media company Grupo Record, the network is headquartered in São Paulo, where most of its programming is also generated at the Dermeval Gonçalves Theater, and has a branch in Rio de Janeiro, where its telenovelas and other formats are produced at the Casablanca Estúdios (RecNov) complex.

In 1989, Record, after being under unfavorable financial situation in the second half of that decade, was sold to Bishop Edir Macedo, founder and leader of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God.

To set up the station, modern equipment was provided from the United States that was installed in its studios on Miruna Avenue, in the Moema neighborhood, South Zone of São Paulo.

Before going on the air, the channel made some experimental broadcasts months before its inauguration, showing the choir of the Escola Normal Caetano de Campos and the orchestra of the São Paulo Public Force.

In the first image to be shown by the station, the artist couple Blota Júnior and Sônia Ribeiro descended a staircase and announced the launch of TV Record.

After Blota made a speech, a show started with Dorival Caymmi, Inezita Barroso, Adoniran Barbosa, Isaura Garcia, Pagano Sobrinho, Randal Juliano, Enrico Simonetti's orchestra and several dancers.

In its early operations, the station aired musical (among which, with celebrities such as Nat King Cole, Charles Aznavour, Ella Fitzgerald and Marlene Dietrich), sports, theater, humorous and informative programs.

[9] The station's headquarters in Moema would come to suffer a fire in May 1960, causing Rede Unidas to air more programs from the co-generator TV Rio while Record recovered.

Silvio Santos won some concessions from the former broadcaster from the federal government and founded his own television network, SBT, in 1981, on part of the former Rede Tupi stations and studios.

After SBT was founded, in 1981, TV Record São Paulo became a second plan for Silvio Santos, but the Machado de Carvalho family, co-owners of the channel, insisted on investing in the small station.

With Record already suffering a serious crisis and on the verge of bankruptcy, Silvio Santos convinces Paulo Machado de Carvalho to put the station up for sale.

After its sale, TV Record went through drastic changes: a new visual identity was presented in July 1990 and a reformulation in its programs that managed to recover its lost audience.

Among the successes of this new phase, the productions A Escrava Isaura, Prova de Amor, Vidas Opostas and Caminhos do Coração (which was divided into three seasons due to its huge audience) stood out.

The pilot of the helicopter, Rafael Delgado Sobrinho, died on the spot and cameraman Alexandre Silva de Moura "Borracha" was taken in serious condition to hospital; the two occupants were rescued by Globocop from TV Globo.

[16][17] On November 6, 2023, as part of the network's 70th anniversary, RecordTV underwent another rebranding; it introduced a refined version of the 2016 logo (which has a metallic texture, more greyscale colors, and reshaped "fins" designed to make it resemble a play button in its negative space), and shortened its name to simply "Record".

In this first period, still in the era of Silvio Santos and Paulo Machado de Carvalho, the highlights were Os Deuses Estão Mortos and As Pupilas do Senhor Reitor, the latter being, according to Unicamp, the soap opera with the highest audience in Record's history.

On May 10, 2004, Herval Rossano was hired as general director of teledramaturgy and began to guide the network in restructuring, promoting investment in the purchase of state-of-the-art equipment, new studios and expansion of the team, in addition to the acquisition of a cast of rising authors and new qualified actors.

[26] In 1992, the station's studios, still located in Moema, suffered another fire in which several documents related to the sale of Record were lost, causing the transaction to owe more satisfactory explanations.

That same year, Edir Macedo was arrested shortly after holding a service at the Templo Maior of the Universal Church in the Santo Amaro neighborhood of São Paulo on charges of charlatanism, stelionism, and injury to popular belief.

[30] According to the investigation, at least 50 companies, such as radio and TV stations (especially Rede Record), printers and tourism agencies controlled directly or indirectly by members of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God are benefited by donations made by believers of the UCKG throughout the country.

At dawn on the holiday of October 12, 1995, the day of Our Lady of Aparecida, celebrated by Catholics, the program O Despertar da Fé, produced by the Universal Church, was aired on Rede Record.

The Folha de S.Paulo newspaper found out, together with other journalists from RecordTV, that conflicts were occurring in its journalism editorial line to favor Bolsonaro from politically biased information.

Writing for The Intercept Brasil, João Filho questioned the increased inflow of public money to RecordTV and other stations in which the owners appear on Bolsonaro's side.

On January 15, 2020, it was revealed by Folha de S.Paulo that Fabio Wajngarten, head of the Social Communication Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic (SECOM), received, through a company of which he is a partner, money from TV stations and advertising agencies that have contracts with Jair Bolsonaro's government.

In June 2020, a survey released by Agência Pública confirmed that RecordTV, alongside other evangelical broadcasters and pastors supporting the government, received the most advertising funds from SECOM, at a total of 30 million reais.

While all TV stations and websites in the country were following the arrest of Marcelo Crivella, mayor of Rio de Janeiro, bishop of Universal and nephew of Edir Macedo, Record was using its journalism to "gild" the pill.

The network was criticized for supposedly trying to "pass the rag" or distort an established fact: the arrest was treated only as "driving".In October 2020, the electoral judge Luciana Mocco Moreira Lima prohibited RecordTV from continuing to make political propaganda with the use of subliminal advertising.

A subliminal advertisement for Mayor Marcelo Crivella, a candidate for reelection in the city of Rio de Janeiro and who is the nephew of the Edir Macedo, was circulated by the station and on its website.

The judge recalled that a similar fact occurred in 2014, in the election for mayor of Rio de Janeiro, in which a vignette was suspended by the Electoral Justice, which advertised Psalm 22, when the number of Crivella, at the time, was also 22.

[33] According to Radar To Facts, on February 26, 2021, RecordTV and other media outlets have helped drive misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic by posting interviews with doctors on YouTube defending drugs with no proven effectiveness or with criticism of wearing masks.