Early years In Brazil around the same time, the concessions for the first television broadcast network were decreed and distributed by President
Eurico Gaspar Dutra's administration, and a cornerstone was placed for the very first transmitter in Brazil for the first commercial network, Rede Tupi. It was initially located in the municipality of Morro do Pão de Açúcar, in the city of
Rio de Janeiro. By 1949, a group of technicians and engineers arrived in Brazil and visited the planned location for the broadcast tower for the first time only to find that due to the topography in Rio, the planned broadcast tower site wouldn't be the ideal place for its installation. As media mogul
Assis Chateaubriand was interested in the opening of the first broadcast television network in Brazil and Latin America and already knew that the US was crucial in sponsoring the first TV broadcast in
Cuba on
Christmas Day of 1950, he decided to transfer to
São Paulo for the inaugural broadcast, and the government gave the concession of channel 3, given by
Radio Difusora in order to start
Rede Tupi's operations. Then, Chateaubriand ordered the broadcasting equipment necessary, for the station had already been built, just in time for this installation. 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. The motorcade was a hit, and crowds gathered to see the equipment being driven to the new station, a preview of what the new station would offer. 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. And Chateaubriand, owner of the new channel, had transmitters built across the city so that the people of the so-called Paulista would know what television is, as many people still didn't even know about TV at all. A number of TV sets were given to restaurants, bars and other places so that those who have not yet brought TVs would see the new medium themselves. It was the first
Lusophone or
Portuguese-speaking country to introduce television, even before the home country of
Portugal with
RTP (1955). It was also the fifth nation in the world to have a television station with daily broadcasts, behind the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Mexico. The first television show on Tupi was first broadcast on the eve of September, and is considered the first Brazilian television program, TV na Taba, in an allusion to the indigenous people, who were already inhabited the Brazilian lands in the pre-Cabral era. The network's symbol, a small Indian boy with an antenna on his head, appeared with the opening message: "Good evening. 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. Another characteristic of television productions of this early period was live impromptu, as there was no
videotape. The high costs of TV sets, which were imported, restricted the access of the media to the urban elites of major cities. Globo, launched a few months after the
1964 coup, created the first true national network by the late 1960s.
The rise of Rede Globo From the early 1970s to late 1980s, Globo dominated both the audience and the development of television programming. The daily average of TV sets turned on dropped from 65% in 1982–1991 to 42% in 2008. In the decade, the top five TV networks in the country lost altogether 4.3% of their share. SBT lost 44% of its viewership in the prime time, while Globo lost 9%. The biggest decline for Globo were in its showcase telenovelas, aired at 9 p.m., which reached an all-time low during the decade. The network's latest telenovela in the time slot,
Viver a Vida, scored the lowest ratings of the past ten years. 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. and mornings. In some state capitals, such as
Goiânia,
Fortaleza, and
Belém, for instance, Record's
Domingo Espetacular already surpasses the audience of Globo's
Fantástico, while Record's
Fala Brasil already surpasses Globo's
Bom Dia Brasil in São Paulo. Globo also faces a decrease of its audience in
Rio de Janeiro, where the network is headquartered. On December 11, 2009, Record surpassed the audience of Globo in Rio during the broadcast of
The Elite Squad. Almost a year later, on December 2, 2010, Globo came on an unprecedented third place in the
Greater Rio ratings in the 11 p.m.–12 a.m. time slot. On a previous occasion, Record came first in the area's ratings from 7 a.m. to 12 a.m. on September 8, 2010. A recent research conducted by
Deloitte showed that surfing the web has surpassed watching TV as the entertainment activity preferred by most Brazilians. ==Cable television==