Television in Brazil
In July 1950, the equipment arrived by ship in Port Santos and was accompanied to the capital by one of the many artists of the Emissoras Associadas group in São Paulo via motorcade.
Finally, on the 18th of September, 1950, network television in Brazil made its official debut in São Paulo with TV Tupi on channel 3, in an historical ceremony that was considered simplistic for the occasion in one question away.
You are in the open TV station in Brazil," considering to be the first line of Brazilian television, starring the young actress Sonia Maria Dorce, then aged 6.
[1] The military dictatorship which took power in 1964 saw audiovisual communication as a tool for creating a stronger national identity, a broader consumer economy, and controlling political information.
[1] The military pushed television deeper into the population by subsidizing credit for set sales, building national microwave and satellite distribution systems, which prompted the growth of Rede Globo, which they chose as a privileged partner.
[1] Telenovelas had largely been patterned after those in other Latin American countries, even using imported scripts, but during that decade they were developed into a considerably more sophisticated genre, specifically after the airing of Beto Rockfeller, a well-produced story about a Rio de Janeiro good-lifer, in 1968 by Tupi.
[1] The Brazilian telenovelas became good enough, as commercial television entertainment, to be exported throughout Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa.
These shows appealed heavily to the lower- and middle-classes, and often featured content that was considered sensational and vulgar for the period—leading to them falling out of favour by the late-1960s due to the military government.
[6] During this period, Globo was accused of being the mouthpiece of the dictatorship, mainly because of its omission in covering the Diretas Já movement, in which thousands of Brazilians gathered on public squares to demand a direct election for president.
[1] With Globo dominating the ratings, other broadcast television networks found themselves pursuing smaller, more specific audience segments largely defined by social class.
[1] On the other hand, Manchete initially targeted a more elite audience, with news, high budget telenovelas, and imported programs, but found the segment too small to gain an adequate advertiser support.
Perceiving that it might literally lose its audience to competitors, Globo switched sides and supported the transition to a civilian regime, which was indirectly elected in a compromise situation.
The network's latest telenovela in the time slot, Viver a Vida, scored the lowest ratings of the past ten years.
[14] According to Renata Pallottin, a professor at University of São Paulo's Art and Communication School, this happens because recent telenovelas, which has the same basic story sketches since the 1970s, has proven to be unappealing to younger audiences, who watch American television series on cable TV or surf the web instead.
[20] A recent research conducted by Deloitte showed that surfing the web has surpassed watching TV as the entertainment activity preferred by most Brazilians.
Brazil has one of the lowest number of households with access to cable television, as a result of the combination of high prices charged by providers and the reduced purchasing power of most Brazilians.
The government estimated that it would take seven years for DTT service to become available across the country; beginning with the greater São Paulo metropolitan, Belo Horizonte in early March 2008, and Rio de Janeiro in late May 2008.
[29] As referenced by journalist Eugênio Bucci, the problem of "audiovisual media ownership concentration is relatively sharper" in Brazil when compared to the United States.
