RecordTV


RecordTV is a Brazilian free-to-air commercial television network established on September 27, 1953 by the businessman and media personality Paulo Machado de Carvalho. Its creation belongs to the television inauguration in Brazil, when Paulo Machado de Carvalho was interested by this media and wanted to expand its conglomerate to TV, which was the big news in the early 1950s. Paulo then filed a request to operate a television station in São Paulo, which was granted to him in November 1950, shortly after the pioneering TV Tupi came on air.
Finally inaugurated in 1953 on the São Paulo's channel 7, Record quickly fell in popularity, specializing in musical program production, becoming the audience leader in the 1960s with historical music festivals and the Jovem Guarda. In the mid-1970s, half of the channel was sold to businessman and TV host Silvio Santos, while the station was financially regressing and reaching pre-bankruptcy in the late 1980s.
The formation of the national network began in the early 1990s, after the station was acquired by Edir Macedo, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God founder and leader. Since then, the channel began a major investment and a reconstruction phase that culminated in 2007, consolidating as the second largest TV network in Brazil in audience and billing until 2015, when it was exceeded by SBT. The position started to be played more intensively with the SBT from 2012, with both disputing tenth points and taking turns in the Ibope ranking. Today, it is the third largest commercial television station in Brazil and the 28th largest in the world ranking of 2012. Record is also the oldest television station in activity in Brazil.
Their studios are located in the district of Barra Funda, in São Paulo and are called Teatro Dermeval Gonçalves. The station also has a complex located in the neighborhood of Vargem Grande, in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro, known as RecNov.

History

1950s: Beginnings

TV Record started its transmissions on September 27, 1952. It was founded by :pt:Paulo Machado de Carvalho|Paulo Machado de Carvalho in São Paulo, as a competitor for then-dominant Rede Tupi from Diários Associados. It broke the three-year-old monopoly the station had in the city. It originally broadcast entertainment shows, sports, journalism, comedies and plays. In the 1950s, TV Record became recognized for their sports broadcasts. In 1959, it started airing shows featuring international entertainment figures, such as Charles Aznavour, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, and Marlene Dietrich.

1960s: Record's Golden Age

The 1960s were considered Record's "Golden Age". The peak of Record's ratings were in the 1965-1970 period, when it became well known for its musical programs showcasing Bossa Nova and Jovem Guarda artists, and its MPB Music Festivals, which opened the doors to Tropicália. It was also during the 1960s that it aired its comedic series Família Trapo, created in 1967. That year, it started to lead the newly founded Rede de Emissoras Independentes, whose stations aired Record programs and were its first affiliates. In 1968 Record's fortune started to change, because of a series of fires that handicapped its production capability. Brazilian public tastes began to be attracted to the telenovelas of Rede Globo.

1970s: New decade, new problems

The station sold 50% of its shares to Silvio Santos in 1971, but Record did not regain its higher ratings. It was the first television to broadcast in color in 1966, during the Festa da Uva in Caxias do Sul, together with :pt:TV Rio|TV Rio and :pt:TV Difusora |TV Difusora. It would later be broadcast in full-color in 1970. Before this, transmissions in color since 1962 were experimental. TV Record had programming based on TV series, movies and cartoons, and TV shows, as well as its news programming.

1980s: The decline gets worse

The formation of SBT in 1981 marked more competition and the deepening of Record's decline. In most of the 1980s, Record suffered from very low ratings, no stars in its casts, and a lack of compelling programming, aside for it being the official station for Programa Silvio Santos and other SBT programs. However, the channel scored a victory in 1984 with Jornal da Record's 2-hour telecast, broadcast in select Brazilian cities, as well as in the promotion of Brazilian country music though Marcelo Costa's Especial Sertanejo. Record also began its transition into a national network with the 1982 opening of its Rio station.

1990s: Record's resurgence

In 1989, Sílvio Santos and Paulo Machado de Carvalho's family sold Record to Edir Macedo and his Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus. The following year Record became a national channel, in conjunction with their 37th anniversary of broadcasting, debuting its current logo, and later that year began satellite broadcasts, returning to Rio in 1993. Given the Pentecostal connections of the new leadership it's no surprise that Record's long line of religious programming would be traced to its relaunch.
On October 12, 1995, the network became infamous throughout the country because of the "Kicking of the saint" episode, aired during the church's late night program.
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Under Macedo, the new owners started to rebuild Record's public image, identifying as Rede Record and signing broadcasting affiliates throughout Brazil. Through most of the 1990s and the first half of the 2000s, Record invested in popular programming, signing stars such as :pt:Ana Maria Braga|Ana Maria Braga and :pt:Carlos Massa|Carlos "Ratinho" Massa. It changed its programming in several ways, adding more sports coverage ; investigative journalism and many others. It added several United States series, such as Star Trek, The X-Files, Millennium and The Three Stooges. It also added educational children's shows, and cartoons from world markets, such as Dexter's Laboratory and the anime Pokémon.

2000s: On the way to leadership

In 2000 Adriane Galisteu joined the network, one of so many to join its ranks as the 21st century started.
In 2003, TV Record celebrated its 50th anniversary of its launch in São Paulo, thus with this achievement Record is today the longest-running and oldest existing Brazilian television network. In 2004, it began using a new slogan, A Caminho da Liderança, and released new programming. Despite the critics, the channel has taken a page from Globo's success and started to invest heavily in telenovelas, like Essas Mulheres and Ribeirão do Tempo. It has also tried to make its announcers and journalists look more like its main competitor. It did not renew the contract of its anchor, Boris Casoy, who moved to Rede Bandeirantes as a result.
In 2007, Record, for the first time, occupied 2nd place in São Paulo's ratings. Its goal was to take over leadership in the 2010s. Two years later, in 2009, Record's audience in Rio surpassed that of Globo after airing the blockbuster Brazilian action film The Elite Squad. At the same time, the network soon debuted its very own news channel, Record News, and began its international service as well.

2010s: Record today

In a first for the network, Record signed with the International Olympic Committee for the exclusive rights for the free-to-air television to the 2010 Winter Olympics and the 2012 Summer Olympics. The network also holds, until 2019, the Pan-American Games broadcasts rights.
IBOPE surveys confirmed that Record enjoyed a 101% increase in its audience in São Paulo, and an astonishing 270% increase in its audience in Rio de Janeiro. In the same survey, in São Paulo, Globo suffered a 26% decline in its audience, while SBT lost 37% of its audience, while in Rio de Janeiro, Globo's audience dropped by 30%, whereas SBT lost 17%. It was different in 2014 when SBT regained its 2nd place in the national ratings, while Record was pulled down to 3rd place overall.
2014 marked the first time both Rede Record and Record News broadcast the 2014 Winter Olympics together.
It was indeed in recent years that Record's long line of locally produced and imported programs, including new US programs had made it one of the best stations in Brazil today, reinforced by program hosts in the variety and reality programs and newsreaders in the local and national levels, several of them with long years of service in other stations. By 2015, it has become the pioneer Latin American TV network to produce programs in 4K and the first ever to produce a Bible-based telenovela, beating others in the process. It can be noted that since 2004 Bible-themed miniseries have been also a part of Record's programming.
On November 24, 2016, the network changed its name to RecordTV and unveiled a modified version of its logo which dropped the RGB colors.

List of active programs on Record channels

Reality shows/Game shows
RecordTV owns TV stations in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasília, Belo Horizonte, Goiânia, Salvador, Belém, Recife and Florianópolis. In February 2007, it announced the buyout of TV Guaíba, in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul.

International broadcasting

RecordTV Internacional is the international service of RecordTV. It is available in North America, Europe, Africa—including Uganda, and Asia.

Criticism

RecordTV is sometimes referred as a biased network due to its close relationship with a neopentecostal church. Edir Macedo, currently Record's owner, is also the leader and principal bishop of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. RecordTV commonly provides daily broadcasting time to religious programs and some of their executive team also share specific roles within the church.
The station also receives criticism from leaders of the rival Assembly of God church, who accuse Macedo, his church, and the station of promoting immorality by broadcasting sexually-oriented television programs.