The station was set up in the early 1980s in Valledupar, Colombia and was created by a local entrepreneur named Jose Jorge Dangond.

It started as an unlicensed TV station and as a personal hobby with aficionado equipment brought from the United States, transmitting American movies and local vallenato musical groups, including first versions of the Vallenato Legend Festival.

By 1986 the Colombian Ministry of Communications detected the channel's signal and seized all the equipment.

On this same year (on April 28), the station formally became Telecaribe, and the main equipment and studios were then moved to Barranquilla where it continued to develop and cover the entirety of Colombia's Caribbean region by setting up franchises or TV stations in the seven major cities of this region.

[1][2] Dangond was its founder and first director for almost 6 years before he was appointed consul general in Venezuela.