Build-up and early years The state of Maranhão had its first television experience in 1955, when during the controversial supplementary election for the Federal Senate, journalist and candidate
Assis Chateaubriand ordered a closed circuit broadcast, carried out with the technical support of
Rede de Emissoras Associadas, which he owned. Studios were prepared in the Rádio Timbira auditorium in São Luís, and televisions were installed in Largo do Carmo. Viewers were then able to follow musical numbers by Keila Vidigal and
Luiz Gonzaga, under the command of announcer Carlos Frias, solely for the purpose of promoting Chateaubriand's candidacy, who ended up being elected. However, the implementation of a television station began in the 1960s, when brothers Raimundo Bacelar and Magno Bacelar, members of an influential local political family, together with other partners, formed a company through Rádio Difusora (inaugurated by them in 1955) to obtain a concession from the Federal Government. On June 25, 1962, Prime Minister Tancredo Neves granted the concession of VHF channel 4 in São Luís to the group. At that time, plans for its implementation had already been in place since 1960, when two floors of the João Goulart Building (at the time belonging to INPS), in the center of the capital, were rented for a period of 10 years to host Radio Difusora (10th floor) and later TV Difusora (9th floor). Cr$100 million were also invested in the purchase of equipment imported from the United States and the United Kingdom. TV Difusora's first team, partly from Rádio Difusora, was made up of: Luiz Cardoso de Almeida, technician; Nonato Lemos (Pudim), transmitter operator; Antonio Vieira and Ribamar Fernandes (Escurinho do Samba), telecine; Haroldo Rêgo, TV direction; Douglas Santos and Euclides Marinho (Lourinho), cameras; Elvas Ribeiro (Parafuso), sound designer; Genes Celeste Soares, set design. José Leite Machado, Bernardo Almeida and Fernando Cutrim were the first presenters, while Leonor Filho and Florisvaldo Sousa were the station's standard voices. Georges Ohnet and Roberto Marassi (from TV Excelsior) were responsible for the artistic direction of the programming in its first months, and after returning to São Paulo in 1964, they were replaced by Reynaldo Faray. As a result of its affiliation with Globo, and with only TVE Maranhão (founded in 1969) as its competitor, the station began to reach exorbitant ratings, reaching 100% share for an entire day. There were also changes in programming, which began to prioritize journalism over entertainment, under strict Globo standards.
Political problems before changing networks In 1985, TV Difusora and the other stations in the group had 50% of their shares sold to businessman and politician Francisco Coelho, state secretary of agriculture under the then governor Luiz Rocha. The sale accompanied the process of political weakening of Magno Bacelar, led by President
José Sarney, once his political ally, who envisioned having Globo as the network for his future broadcaster, TV Mirante. Bacelar said years later that Sarney even put pressure on
Roberto Marinho for Globo to break with TV Difusora and migrate its programming to TV Mirante at the time of its inauguration, in 1987. The change, however, was postponed due to the repercussions caused by the disaffiliation of
TV Aratu in favor of
TV Bahia in Salvador in the same year, also due to political motivations, which made Globo gradually renew its affiliation with TV Difusora every year until the station's sale process was completed. At the end of 2014 and throughout 2015, TV Difusora promoted a series of layoffs in several areas, and more than 100 employees became unemployed. As a result, several programs ended up being taken off the air, and television news programs, also affected by the reduction in the number of reporters, began to have greater participation from inland stations in their content. The broadcaster entered a financial crisis and leased part of its schedule to independent programs on Saturday mornings, in addition to reducing the duration of local midday programs to include a call-in quiz show from G2P TV. On January 12, 2016, Época magazine columnist, Leandro Loyola, published a note informing that TV Difusora was being put up for sale by Edinho Lobão. Lobão initially stated that the deal would only involve TV Difusora São Luís, with the other outlets of Sistema de Comunicação Difusora being left out of a possible transition. However, after the crisis at TV Difusora eased and there was a financial restructuring, the businessman denied that he could sell the station. Subsequently, the then federal deputy Weverton Rocha, represented by lawyer and businessman Willer Tomaz de Sousa, leased the station and Difusora FM, definitively purchasing the group in March 2020. ==References==