Bolivia TV
Bolivia Televisión is the first television station of Bolivia and serves the only means of television communication from the government. The channel was established in August 1969 under the government of Luis Adolfo Siles after years of planning by the government of then-recently deceased René Barrientos. It is a state-owned broadcasting network.
Created to replace the previous public station Televisión Boliviana or TVB, it was the audience leader as it was the only legal television station in the country until 1984, when private television stations were legalized in Bolivian territory. The station claims to be plural and the only media outlet reaches out to the whole population.
Bolivia TV has been accused by society and opposition politicians of being a means of propaganda for the government in power. Most of the channel's content belonged to social organizations and figures affiliated with the ruling party.
History
Military governments (1969–1979)
State television in Bolivia emerged a long time after the same started in other Latin American countries. On October 5, 1965, the government signed Supreme Decree 7345 to create the Radio and Television Direction, which was followed by Decree-Law 7454 on December 22 the same year for the government to control the service without specifying technical characteristics. The latter decree suggested that "the degree of cultural and educational development in the country makes it necessary, timely and advisable to incorporate the Television Service into the active life of the nation", with "predominantly cultural and educational purposes". This decree formalized the creation of the national television company. On December 23, at a Cabinet Council, the supreme decree for regulation and supervision of television was signed which, for one year after the signing of the decree, gave control of the television service to the Bolivian State for the future development of the country.Following the 1966 Bolivian general election, plans were already underway for a national television service owned by the government. Up until then, Bolivia was served by a small number of closed-circuit experimental systems. The new service was set to be called "Red Nacional de Televisión". Proposals from Spanish, Japanese, American and French companies were presented. The bid was won by Spanish company Industrias Electrónicas y Electromecánicas, by means of Supreme Decree 8262 of February 20, 1968, for the television network in the cities of La Paz, Cochabamba, Oruro, Santa Cruz, Potosí and Sucre, at the total cost of US$2,487,900. Provisions were made for the government to provide a one-year monopoly to the first TV station in Bolivia, scheduled to start before the end of 1966. The state had already reserved three frequencies, channel 5 in La Paz, channel 4 in Cochabamba and channel 3 in Santa Cruz de la Sierra. After the prospective first year period ended, the state would allow the creation of private television stations.
Given the rumors of the closure of Congress and the desire of the government of that time to have power over the country to become a dictator, President René Barrientos Ortuño signs the Supreme Decree 08395, on June 19, 1968, with which he founded the Bolivian Radio and Television Company, and later, with Supreme Decree 8571 decides to change the name to Empresa Nacional de Televisión Boliviana.
The first experimental broadcasts were held in July 1968, with no structured continuation and limited to a few areas of La Paz.
Due to the death of Barrientos, his vice president, Luis Adolfo Siles Salinas, assumes the presidency, and therefore, continues Barrientos' project before dying. At that time, a contract was signed with the Spanish company, INELEC, in order to advise and contribute to the installation of the State Television Channel. Many of the members of the technical team were members of the Spanish company, as well as the Bolivian Air Force, in addition to several equipment parts being brought from Spain.
Test phase
Programmed test transmissiones were made throughout July, including the July 16, 1969 celebrations.With high expectations, ENTBOL aired the audiovisual archive of the Apollo 11 moon landing, running 49 minutes, and shown at 8pm on July 24. From the Supreme Government, it solicited the importing companies of television sets to install such sets at Plaza Murillo, Paseo del Prado and other areas of La Paz to see mankind's achievement on television.
The president initially authorized the launch of Televisión Boliviana for August 4. However, the launch was delayed until the end of the month.
On air
Televisión Boliviana was founded on August 30, 1969, at 7:46pm, during the constitutional government of President Luis Adolfo Siles Salinas, being an unfinished project of the last stage of the deceased president René Barrientos Ortuño The first face seen on the station was that of Tito Landa. International news came from DPA newswires, where the news arrived on a three-day delay.Initially, the coverage area was limited to La Paz, from a studio located in El Alto, with the signal reaching the capital and the mining centers. In 1971–1972, the coverage expanded to cover other departments, by means of relay stations. The signal was satisfactorily received in a few areas of La Paz, in other cities less so, in a precarious manner.
Juan Fernando Landa, better known as Tito Landa, was its first presenter, being on the network from opening night.
Ovando Candia's government signed Supreme Decree 9352 on August 20, 1970, giving the company to the Ministry of Information and a three-member board. Later that year, Supreme Decree 9914 granted French company LGT the supply of relay equipment to mining districts, from Luribay in La Paz to Colquiri, as well as equipment and technical material for a Motorola communication system. The choice of a French company followed on from the bankruptcy of INELEC in 1970. Until then, only the central station in La Paz was finished at the cost of US$1,415,138.70.
Of a state nature, two years later it became the tool with which the dictatorship of Hugo Bánzer tried to neutralize the influence of the mining stations, and to prevent them from operating successfully. In 1974, the government and COMIBOL distributed five thousand television sets in the mines with extensive payment facilities. According to testimonies from the families of the miners, the introduction of this new medium changed the views and expectations of the population, although later in 1978 the miners demanded the return and reopening of their radios through a stoppage of activities. TV Boliviana was financed largely by advertising.
In addition to assuring security to Bolivia thanks to the telecommunications services, it was also suggested that ENTEL, the telecommunications company, should join Intelsat or another satellite consortium. On October 15, 1974, the signing of Supreme Decree Nº. 11862 gave the company the complete right to exploit its signals in closed circuit technology.
Between 1976 and 1977, TVB started experimenting live broadcasts between two cities.
In 1977, the structure of the television market in the country was made up of nine television stations: eight managed by state universities with regional coverage, and one state network with national coverage. That same year General David Padilla authorized the granting of licenses for private television stations. However, before they were assigned, his regime suffered a coup by General García Meza, who promptly re-established the state monopoly on television, and appointed military rectors in the universities, so that its channels came under the close control of the Ministry of the Interior. The relative independence that these stations had until then was considerably reduced.
Arrival of color television (1979)
The government adopted PAL-M as the color television deployment in April 1976, following its introduction coming from Supreme Decree 13381 on February 20 that year. However, the television station owned by the Juan Misael Saracho University of Tarija opted for the NTSC format from April 13 that year, contradicting the decree. This situation was corrected in 1979, enabling all television station in Bolivia to broadcast only on the NTSC standard.On August 1, 1979, Televisión Boliviana began broadcasting on the NTSC system. in color compatible with the M transmission system in black and white. This, despite the fact that from 1976 some foreign productions could be seen in color in the country.
In early November 1979, its broadcasts were frequently interrupted in order to control public opposition.
Temporary Union takeover (November 1979)
On November 17, 1979, during the government transition between Walter Guevara Arce, Alberto Natusch Busch's de facto regime and the recent administration of Lidia Gueiler, The Televisión Boliviana Workers' Union accepted the chance of taking charge of the network, as well as a transitional schedule, until it was positioned to the new authorities. Using an announcement spread to several media outlets, the union raised the awareness of the abandoning of the company's authorities after the fall of Natusch Busch's regime. As consequence, the Presidency of the Republic, by means of senator Benjamín Miguel Harb, approved the union takeover, with the aim of maintaining Channel 7's television transmissions, such act was approved by press, radio and television labor unions. The announcement was signed by several of its members, among them Felix Espinoza, Freddy Meneses, Pastor Gemio, José Orozco, José Luis Fernández and Rosario C. de Flores.Democratic governments and the entrance of private media (1982–2003)
During the governments of presidents Hernán Siles Zuazo and Víctor Paz Estenssoro, Televisión Boliviana showed greater political plurality, including spaces for the opposition and more objective journalism. The administration of President Jaime Paz Zamora continued with this opening. But by then, private television stations began broadcasting clandestinely, and even managed to obtain broadcasting licenses, events that caused a drop in audience for the state network. Around this time, the station was also plagued by abuse, manipulation and censorship incidents. During the first government of President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, the channel's newscasts were directed by the journalist Carlos Mesa. The station's programming broadcast a wide variety of journalistic, historical and documentary programs. Some slots were broadcast in indigenous languages.Until the arrival of the first private television stations, Televisión Boliviana was still a partisan television station. The environment changed in 1984, as Siles Zuazo favored freedom of the press, contrary to what the Ministry of Information's stance of television as a medium under state control.
The Bolivian economy in 1984 was facing a period of stagflation, to which the Unidad Democratica Popular government adopted new measures from April 12, 1984, causing the state TV company to cover the new measures. However the station criticized the measures, under the grounds that "such broadcast is an abuse of power of the Government". On April 25, the UDP government fired Eduardo Ascarruz, the manager of Empresa Nacional de Televisión ENTB Canal 7, being replaced by Luis Quintanilla. The dismissal of the official ended up causing indignation in the television station's union towards the Supreme Government. On April 26, 1984, the ENTB workers' union, through an emergency assembly, rejected the dismissal of journalist Eduardo Ascarrúnz and assigned a "politician", proceeding with an indefinite general strike. The unionists accused the Minister of Information, Mario Rueda Peña, of the "arbitrary determination", the general secretary, Felix Espinosa questioned the political militancy of manager Quintanilla with the MIR, an ally of the UDP government.
The arrival of democracy also led to the arrival of political pluralism to the network, where at the end of the 1980s proeminent journalists such as Carlos Mesa started shaping up the public opinion sector, which in the 90s was already known as the "todólogos".
With the arrival of the second government of president Hugo Bánzer, the editorial line of Televisión Boliviana took a clear turn to the right. Military parades and national commemorations were often broadcast. News programs avoided mentioning the bloody human rights violations that occurred in the 1970s, during the first Bánzer government. After his death in 2002, his successor, Jorge Quiroga, the network did not make significant changes.
During the second government of President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada an attempt was made to return to a program similar to that of his first term from 1993 to 1997, but the resounding fall of his government with the Gas War in October 2003 left many projects shelved. In the political turmoil that shook the country in the two years and two months that followed, the station was unable to adopt a defined information line and its programming showed a gradual deterioration that did not improve until the decline of its corporate identity.