Rede Tupi

Rede Tupi

Final logo of Rede Tupi introduced in 1979
Type	Commercial network
Country	Brazil
First air date	September 18, 1950 (1950-09-18)
Headquarters	São Paulo, SP
Owner	Diários Associados
Parent	Rádio Difusora de São Paulo S.A.
Key people	Assis Chateaubriand ( 1950–1968)
Dissolved	July 18, 1980 (1980-07-18)

Rede Tupi (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈʁedʒi tuˈpi]; in English, Tupi Network) was a Brazilian free-to-air television network. Its headquarters and main program producer, TV Tupi São Paulo, was inaugurated on September 18, 1950 by journalist Assis Chateaubriand. It was the first TV station to operate in in Latin America. It belonged to Diários Associados (Associated Journal), which at the time, holding several newspapers and radios, was one of the largest media conglomerates in Brazil. Other channels would be inaugurated by the group in some localities of the country, forming the nucleus of the first national television network.

During the 1950s, TV Tupi was the channel with the highest audience in Brazil, followed by TV Record/TV Rio (Rede das Emissoras Unidas) and TV Paulista. From the 1960s, the channel would lose the audience leadership to TV Record and later the second place to TV Excelsior, occupying the third place. In 1967, it was surpassed in audience by TV Globo, assuming the fourth place of audience in the remainder of the decade. During the 1970s, due to the closing of TV Excelsior, it again occupied third place, being surpassed by Rede Globo, in first place since 1969, and by TV Record in second place. In 1972, there were 64 television stations in the country. Most were limited to retransmitting the programming of the three major networks: Globo, Record and Tupi. On July 18, 1980, due to administrative and financial problems, Tupi went off the air with part of its broadcast licenses revoked by the Federal Government of Brazil.

The station's assets were acquired by Grupo Silvio Santos (owner of SBT), Grupo Bloch (owner of Rede Manchete, which would close in 1999 and would have its concessions acquired by RedeTV!) and by Grupo Abril.

History

Assembly of the São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro stations

Journalist Assis Chateaubriand, director of Diários e Emissoras Associados, Latin America's largest media conglomerate, became interested in television in July 1944 during a business visit to the headquarters of RCA Victor in New York, from which he had acquired equipment for the assembly of its radio stations. The president of RCA David Sarnoff prepared for Chateaubriand a presentation of the company's investments in broadcasting, including some models of television cameras. After hearing explanations from the engineer and vice president of RCA Vladimir Zworykin about the technology, which until then he had never seen, Chateaubriand quickly decided to create stations for Radio Tupi of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, although he was advised by Sarnoff that Brazil was not ready to receive television and that it should be concerned with strengthening its radio network. Registering the request for installation of the medium, needing to wait for the end of World War II to buy the equipment, Chateaubriand returned to Brazil and sought advertisers and businessmen, who financed his future stations in exchange for advertising contracts and bore the expenses of its assembly. All the equipment for the stations totaled an investment of US$5 Million, equivalent to Cr$ 16 million.

During the period in which he was raising financial support for the assembly of the stations, Chateaubriand asked technicians from RCA and The Marconi Company to go to the state of São Paulo to analyze the topographic conditions of signal transmission to the cities of Santos, Jundiaí and Campinas. Although they believed that transmission would be possible only by relays or telephone cables, the journalist insisted on direct broadcasting from the state capital. In 1947 on a new trip to the United States to order the equipment, he accepted the proposal to acquire an updated version of a transmitter with greater power. In January 1949, associate radio engineer Mario Alderighi and his assistant Jorge Edo traveled to the U.S. and were in New York and Burbank, California to follow the operation of NBC in the form of a course on television operations, while RCA engineers went to Brazil in February to plan the assembly in São Paulo. The assignment contract between the Associates and RCA, referring to the equipment for the capital of São Paulo, was signed in May 1949, having arrived in January 1950; that of Rio de Janeiro, closed with General Electric, landed in October 1949.

In January 1948, Radio Tupi of Rio de Janeiro requested the Ministry of Transportation and Public Works licenses to operate the new stations, but the minister Clóvis Pestana released the installation only from the Rio station. The Associates then chose Rádio Difusora de São Paulo to be responsible for the license in the city, granted in May 1949. Days after Radio Tupi made the request official, the Associates began to disseminate news about the implementation of television in Brazil in their newspapers and magazines.

Launch

After a few months of training, some broadcasters chosen by Assis Chateaubriand, known as Chatô, embarked on the adventure of making TV. The studios were small, the equipment precarious, but the birth of TV Tupi São Paulo was solemn. Chateaubriand presided over the ceremony, which included the participation of a Mexican singer, Frei José Mojica, who sang "The TV song", an anthem composed by the poet Guilherme de Almeida, which also included actress Lolita Rodrigues, especially for the occasion. A ballet by Lia Marques and a recitation by poet Rosalina Coelho, named godmother of the "modern equipment" were part of the show. The young actress Yara Lins was specially summoned to say the station's prefix — PRF-3 — and that of a series of radio stations that broadcast the event in a chain. Then came the programming on the screen of the five televisions installed in the lobby of the Associated Diaries building.

There are many stories about that day. One of them is that an excited Chateaubriand broke a bottle of champagne over one of the two RCA television cameras, causing TV in Brazil to begin with only half its capacity. Another is that, after the inauguration, the team realized that there was nothing to put on the air the next day, because no one had thought about it. Broadcaster Cassiano Gabus Mendes who, at the age of 23, took over the artistic direction of Tupi, has denied these stories. "It's all the invention of Lima Duarte. Because he's so funny, people end up convincing themselves,'" he said shortly before he died in 1993. "Chateaubriand was an enlightened man, he wasn't going to damage equipment and we had a schedule for the next three weeks."

When TV Cultura, channel 2, was launched by Diários Associados in 1960, the station would interfere with TV Tupi on channel 3. For this reason, PRF-3 TV Tupi São Paulo began to occupy channel number 4, where it would remain until its closure.

Pioneering

Two days after the first broadcast, on September 20, 1950, the first comedy program premiered, called Rancho Alegre with Amácio Mazzaropi. Gradually, other programs took shape, such as the first television news program and the first telenovela. In the early days, the actors, accustomed to the radio, screamed on stage, scaring the viewers.

The show revealed the first generation of actors, actresses and directors. Plays such as Hamlet, by Shakespeare, and Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Some programs from the early days of TV Tupi became champions of audience and permanence on the air: Alô Doçura, Sítio do Picapau Amarelo, O Céu É o Limite, commanded by J. Silvestre, and the Artists' Club (which existed from 1952 to 1980) and the famous newscast Repórter Esso (which was eighteen years on the air).

The soap opera was an invention of TV Tupi, which showed them in chapters. It was in 1951, in the soap opera Sua vida me pertence, that Vida Alves let herself be kissed by heartthrob Walter Forster.

In journalism, the station repeated on the screen the success of Repórter Esso, which marked an era in Brazilian radio from 1941. The announcers Heron Domingues and Gontijo Teodoro went on the air with the latest national and international news to the sound of one of the most famous musical prefixes in the history of Brazilian radio and television.

If during the first decade of its existence Tupi was the absolute leader, in the 1960s the competing broadcasters improved their programming to fight for the audience. In 1968, the soap opera Beto Rockfeller by Bráulio Pedroso revolutionized the language of television. From the figure of an anti-hero, a new, more natural style of interpretation emerges. TV Tupi reveals another generation of talents.

Also in children's programming, TV Tupi stood out with Clube do Capitão AZA, created in 1966, where classic cartoons like Speed Racer, and series like Ultraman and Ultraseven were presented.

First live broadcast

Inauguration of the DDD system of São Paulo by the Brazilian Telephone Company with live transmission by TV Tupi (1970).

TV Tupi São Paulo had a live broadcast of the inauguration of Brasília on April 21, 1960. At this time there were still no satellites. The solution to this was to put three planes flying in circles, two from the Brazilian Air Force and one from VASP. The aircraft were evenly distributed on the route between Brasilia and São Paulo, so that one had the range to transmit the waves to another. Thus, the image was captured in Brasilia and transmitted to the first plane, which relayed to the second, to the third, which, finally, retransmitted to the main antenna of TV Tupi in São Paulo, which retransmitted it to the region of range.

At the end of the 60s, thanks to microwave transmission systems, telecommunications were revolutionized. This made it possible to broadcast live by TV stations all over the country. A historical event broadcast live by TV Tupi was the official inauguration in July 1970 of the Direct Distance Dialing (DDD) system in the city of São Paulo, made in conjunction with Brazilian Telephone Company and Embratel.

The formation of the network and the crisis

Old Urca Casino, used to host TV Tupi in Rio de Janeiro.

The long crisis of the Associated Diaries had already begun long before the death of Assis Chateaubriand on April 4, 1968. Shaken by financial problems, poorly managed and without investments, Tupi would lose both program quality and audience.

In the mid-1960s, with the arrival of videotape and the expansion of broadcasts in microwaves, Rede de Emissoras Associadas (Network of Associated Broadcasters) was formed, with the stations belonging to the conglomerate and partners, such as TV Difusora São Luís, which together broadcast soap operas and the 1970 World Cup.

In 1972, the Tupi Television Network begins to be formed. There were several disagreements about which channel would be the "head of the network": channel 4 in São Paulo or channel 6 in Rio. There were two attempts to get both to run the Associated Network. First, the carioca station would command the stations of the North, Northeast and Midwest, while the São Paulo broadcaster would control the channels of the South and Southeast. Second, TV Tupi São Paulo would be responsible for the production of telenovelas, and TV Tupi Rio would be in charge of the shows and auditorium programs. But the two ideas failed, and the feud between the boards of the two stations aggravated the situation of TV Tupi. The only positive point in these two attempts was that Tupi was the first TV network in Latin America to have two programming generating heads. In 1974, the decree authorizing TV Tupi to become "Rede Tupi de TV" was signed, a decree that was read by Gontijo Teodoro on Radio Tupi.

The competing broadcasters are occupying the empty spaces left by the pioneer. Despite a crisis ensuing, the station scored hits in the decade such as Mulheres de areia (1973), Meu Rico Português (1975) and A Viagem (1975). By the end of the 1970s, the situation would deteriorate. Wages are falling further and further behind. There are astronomical debts to the Instituto Nacional do Seguro Social (INSS). Many financial scandals proliferate. In August 1977, Éramos Seis, Cinderella 77 and Um sol maior recorded the lowest ratings in the channel's history. In addition to the audience, advertising was also lost to competitors, the cash flow was empty, salaries were no longer paid and industrial action was just a matter of time. In October 1977, with three months of salary arrears, the employees started the first strike, but it was interrupted with the payment of debts in installments.

The end

TV Tupi Tower São Paulo, inaugurated in 1960 next to the Victor Civita Building, the headquarters of the Associated Broadcasters

The constant wage arrears kept the atmosphere tense in the pioneer broadcaster. The prospects for paying arrears were increasingly remote and the explanations given to employees increasingly inconsistent. To make matters worse, a fire in the station's building in São Paulo in October 1978 took TV Tupi off the air for a few minutes and destroyed the new equipment acquired by the station in the same year, which did not even come into operation. Also in 1978, it began the construction of its new transmitting antenna, which would be the largest TV tower in South America (this tower would be completed by Sistema Brasileiro de Televisão (SBT) a few years later). The following year, the cast of O Espantalho, by Ivani Ribeiro (aired by RecordTV in 1977), sued TV Tupi for not paying the related rights to the actors. Between 1979 and 1980, another strike would hit the network. The crisis would eventually reach Brasilia. The then President of the Republic, João Figueiredo, was willing to receive a commission from leaders of the unions involved.

The strike lasted until early February 1980, when the station closed its drama department and laid off the 250 employees who worked in this sector. The soaps Drácula, Uma História de Amor, which only had 4 chapters aired, and Como salvar meu casamento, 20 episodes from its conclusion, were discontinued. In addition, another soap, ‘’ Maria Nazaré, was in pre-production and 32 scenes were already recorded at the time, but did not get on the air. To replace Drácula, Uma História de Amor, a rerun of the soap opera Éramos Seis was aired, and to replace Como Salvar Meu Casamento, a rerun of A Viagem was aired.

On July 16, TV Tupi had 7 of its 10 licenses declared non-renewable by the Federal Government. The decision was published in the Official Gazette the following day; also on the 17th, the employees of TV Tupi Rio began a vigil that lasted 18 hours, led by the presenter Jorge Perlingeiro, with the aim of preventing the channel from being closed. Several personalities, such as the singer Agnaldo Timóteo and the comedian Costinha, gave support to the employees.

Shortly before noon on July 18, three engineers from the National Telecommunications Department, accompanied by a Federal Police delegate and four other agents, went up to the tenth floor of the headquarters building of TV Tupi in São Paulo, on Avenida Professor Alfonso Bovero, nº 52, in the neighborhood of Sumaré, to seal the transmitters, which was done promptly at 12:36 pm. Minutes before, a mass of Pope John Paul II held earlier that month at Aterro do Flamengo was shown, simultaneously with the voiceover made by actor Cévio Cordeiro, of a message addressed to President Figueiredo asking that the station not be closed. During the video and message, employees put the words "Até breve, telespectadores amigos" on the screen. The last image transmitted by Rede Tupi was that of its logo in the colors of the national flag.

Desta feita, senhor presidente, só vossa excelência poderá nos salvar. Receba os agradecimentos dos empregados da Rede Tupi, em seu nome, e em nome de sua esposa, de seus filhos, cujo único desejo, única reivindicação, é trabalhar. Deixe-nos trabalhar, Senhor presidente. Senhor presidente João Baptista de Oliveira Figueiredo. Só isso que desejamos. Vossa excelência, é o único capaz de realizar esse milagre. Nem João de Deus poderia fazê-lo. Só o João de Brasília. Deus que te abençoe, presidente.
- Cervio Cordeiro

This time, Mr. President, only Your Excellency can save us. Receive thanks from Rede Tupi employees, in his name, and in the name of his wife, his children, whose only desire, only demand, is to work. Let us work, Mr President. Mr President João Baptista de Oliveira Figueiredo. That's all we want. Your Excellency, you are the only one capable of performing this miracle. Not even John of God could do it. Only João from Brasília. God bless you, President.
- Cervio Cordeiro

The head of the São Paulo network was shut down exactly 29 years and ten months after its inauguration. TV Tupi Rio, TV Itacolomi of Belo Horizonte, TV Marajoara of Belém, TV Piratini of Porto Alegre, TV Ceará of Fortaleza, and TV Rádio Clube of Recife also went off air. However, there remains a collection of two hundred thousand rolls of films, sixty one hundred video-tapes and texts of television news that tell 30 years of many stories of Brazil and the world.