Programadora

In Colombian broadcasting, a programadora (literally programmer) is a company that produces television programs, especially for the public-commercial Canal Uno (and, until 2003, Canal A/Segunda Cadena). The Colombian television model from 1955 to the late 1990s relied on programadoras as the sole producers of programs that aired on the two major channels. Following the introduction of two national private television channels to the country in the late 1990s and the recession of that same time period, the programadoras went into a tailspin that led to many closing in bankruptcy or becoming production companies for the private networks. By 2004, only five programadoras were left on Canal Uno; there are currently four.

History

In 1955, the Colombian government created what would be the model of national television for the next four decades. For the preceding year, the lone national channel had focused exclusively on educational and cultural programs.

Private companies bid to lease timeslots to air their shows on the Cadena Nacional (National Channel), which was the only TV network in the country. The government, in turn (from 1964, through Inravisión, the state broadcaster), chose the timeslots and the programs they should air, and operated the national television infrastructure. The first of the major production companies began to spring up, such as Producciones PUNCH (the first programadora, founded in 1956) and RTI Colombia. Radio networks RCN and Caracol also entered the new medium of television. When Colombia gained a second national channel in 1972, Segunda Cadena, companies were assigned slots on both channels indiscriminately. In the 1980s, OTI Colombia, a consortium of programadoras that had the license to broadcast the Olympic Games and World Cup, was formed. It included such major names as R.T.I., Caracol, RCN, PUNCH, Producciones JES and Datos y Mensajes.

The licitación

Every several years, bidding cycles known as licitaciones were opened. At these times, new potential programadoras would bid, old ones would compete for new positions, and some would leave the air. At the start of the next calendar year, television schedules completely changed. These bidding cycles occurred in 1972, 1975, 1977, 1981, 1983, 1987, 1991 (see below), and 1997. (Note the varied length of the concessions: three years in the 1970s, two years in the early 1980s, four years in the mid-late 1980s, and six years after the passage of the Colombian Constitution of 1991.) There was also a small licitación in 1991 to award the former slots of Promec Televisión and Jorge Enrique Pulido TV; a larger off-cycle licitación in 1996 that awarded the former slots of Producciones Cinevisión^[2] and one in 2000 that awarded spaces returned by programadoras including TeVecine and DFL Televisión.^[3]

Newscasts were particularly affected by these bidding periods. New ones would appear after licitaciones and old ones might disappear (such as QAP after 1997) or move to new time slots (for instance, Datos y Mensajes and its flagship Noticiero TV Hoy wound up moving from weekdays to weekends in 1992; the Noticiero 24 Horas in 1998 found itself moving from its traditional 7pm time to 12:30pm). Newscasts either ran on weekdays or on weekends and holidays. At some licitaciones (such as 1991), those wishing to bid for a newscast could not bid for any other programming.

Most programadoras that disappeared prior to the programadoras crisis did so at the end of one of those calendar years (for instance, Noticiero Criptón, a programadora that produced the newscast by the same name, left the air at the end of 1997). There were several exceptions: Jorge Enrique Pulido TV ceased operations in 1990 after its proprietor died, and Multimedia Televisión; Promec Televisión;^[4] and Cromavisión^[5] were forced out for nonpayment of debt (after caducidad administrativa, or administrative expiration of the contracts these companies had with Inravisión, was declared).

Separate bidding cycles were held to program holidays (festivos), usually with movies and special programs. Promec and Producciones Eduardo Lemaitre, later to be known as CPT, were pioneers in this venue of programming. CPT was sold in 1988, did not bid in 1991, and returned at the start of 1998.

1991 changes

The Colombian Constitution of 1991 precipitated major changes in the way the licensing was handled. 31 programadoras applied, and 24 won. These 24 were split into two groups of 12, originally dubbed Telenorte and Telesur, that would air their programs on competing channels. There were several other major changes:^[6]

• The quota for nationally-produced content increased, from 50% to 60%.
• In the 1987 bidding cycle, programadoras were allocated between 4 and 13.5 hours a week. In the 1991 bidding cycle, the minimum was 8 hours a week, with a maximum of 16. For most companies, this was a major increase in output, which came with increased costs to Inravisión for the programming time. (The minimum was further raised to 9.5 hours a week in the licitación of 1997.)^[7]
• A new governing body was established (in accordance with Article 77 of the Constitution of 1991) to relieve Inravisión of its regulatory functions: the Comisión Nacional de Televisión (National Television Commission or CNTV). This entity was formally established in 1995.^[8]
• Initially, the contract would run for six years with the government retaining the option to extend the contracts for another six. This element was dropped in a new television law late in 1996, which thus meant that a new licitación would take place in 1997 with new programming in 1998. QAP, known for its impartiality and independence, believed that this act served solely to get them (as well as several other newscasts critical of the government) off the air and withdrew from the 1997 bidding.

There were a variety of issues that accompanied the new bidding cycle:

• In the 1983 and 1987 bidding cycles combined, only three programadoras had disappeared as a result of losing bids, but six vanished in the 1991 cycle, including Do Re Creativa TV, which protested along with four other disqualified programadoras alleging the illegality of the bidding cycle.^[9]
• It was worried that the Cadena Dos programadoras would be at a disadvantage. Even though the channels had similar coverage area and technical capacity, it was perceived that their positioning after Cadena Uno might hurt them. They proposed the names Telecolombia and Telenacional for the two channels, but ultimately, the two channels became Cadena Uno and Canal A.

In March 1993, more ratings information came to Colombian screens. A court decision forced Inravisión to ban sexual and violent scenes from the franja familiar (family block). Programadoras were now required to state if the program was appropriate for minors to view.^[10] In addition, programadoras had to submit their material to Inravisión 72 hours in advance to determine its suitability.

One additional programadora would vanish in 1995-96, Producciones Cinevisión, on account of its internal problems. The spaces were returned to the CNTV.

Privatization, crisis, and contraction

In 1997, Colómbia awarded two private television licenses to Caracol and RCN, two of the largest programadoras; their channels took to the air on July 10, 1998. Some 25 programadoras still applied for spaces on the two channels in the licitación of 1997, however, including Caracol and RCN which had limited spaces on the two major channels from January–July 1998.^[11] However, Caracol and RCN enjoyed limited output; notably, Caracol was left without any timeslots on Saturdays. Other programadoras presented Caracol's marquee programs on that day, the Premier Caracol movie (Andes Televisión and the revived CPT) and the long-running Sábados Felices variety show (Coestrellas/CPS/Proyectamos Televisión).

It was known at the time that the public-commercial Inravisión channels would be affected, but nobody predicted it would be as rapid a change as it was. In the first year of the private channels, they were growing at the rate anticipated for their fifth year of broadcasting.

The advent of private television, coupled with the economic recession of that decade and ratings declines for the public channels, led to a major crisis for the remaining programadoras. Financial issues, including mounting debts, led some to declare bankruptcy (falling under Ley 550, Colombia's then-bankruptcy reorganization law) and others to become production companies for Caracol and RCN.

By 1999, the programadoras had asked for six of the eighteen daily hours of programming to be removed and for license costs to be lowered; their collective deficits had reached 100 billion Colombian pesos (about US$53 million)^[12][13] and by 2001, their combined debts would exceed 26 billion pesos (about US$11.3 million).^[13][14]

The year 2000 saw several important programadoras leave the air: TeVecine,^[15] DFL Televisión, PUNCH,^[16] JES^[17] and Cenpro Televisión^[18] all returned their spaces to the CNTV. As the spaces came in, Audiovisuales, the state programadora, saw a sharp and unexpected increase in its output — from a mere 5.5 hours at the start of 1998^[19] to a whopping 41 hours a week after PUNCH's departure.^[16]

By March 2001, six companies had fallen under Ley 550; this number rose to seven by July.^[20][21] Later in the year, En Vivo, which produced the weeknight 9:30pm newscasts on Canal A, made the decision to cease operations for reasons that included nonpayment of salaries of reporters and a debt of 14 billion Colombian pesos (over US$6 million).^[13][22] Less than ten programadoras were left by August 2001.^[23] Some companies attempted to work together, such as a partnership on Canal A that included Coestrellas, Datos y Mensajes and two other programadoras,^[24] but that flopped so badly that Datos y Mensajes' flagship news program, Noticiero TV Hoy, was off the air by the end of 2001.

"A dying lion"

The situation continued to worsen, and one channel was affected more than the other: Canal A began to experience serious issues. One week in March, Noticiero Hora Cero, the last news program on the channel,^[25] and its producer CPS went off the air for lack of money, its news director calling the action a sign of the sure death of that channel;^[26] the next, Andes Televisión and Proyectamos Televisión turned in their slots and called it quits.^[27] The rapidly deteriorating situation prompted the El Tiempo newspaper to dub the channel "a dying lion", a riff on its long-standing lion-themed idents. Coestrellas's mid-2003 liquidation left just one, programadora on the Canal A side standing, RTI. As part of a salvation plan (Plan de Salvamento) approved by the government on June 19, 2003, RTI was moved to Canal Uno.^[12] After several months of showing nothing but programs from Audiovisuales, the state programadora (an arm of the Ministerio de Comunicaciones), Canal A became Canal Institucional (now Señal Institucional), a channel that was controlled by the government.

The remaining Canal Uno programadoras (CM&, Colombiana de Televisión, Jorge Barón Televisión, and NTC Televisión, as well as the newcomer Sportsat) each have an equal share of the channel's airtime.

Inravisión and Audiovisuales were liquidated in 2004, partly due to the programadoras crisis but also due to out-of-date equipment and, in the case of the former, costly pension liabilities.

References

External links

This article incorporates information from this version of the equivalent article on the Spanish Wikipedia.